Guarding the gone

They gathered under a scorching sun, in the hottest March recorded, at the Kilinochchi town park where the regional Women’s Day celebration was being held. Sitting outdoors in the intense heat took on a form of diligence true to martyrs. There were nearly three hundred women gathered there; almost all of them had lost someone to the civil war that ended fifteen years ago.

They’re all guardians of someone’s memory; their minds the last museums of those long-gone someones.

Starting over in post-war bureaucracy was a nightmare for a reason.

“All we wanted was to live happily with our children...hire a van once a year and take them somewhere on holiday.”

The best option might seem to let go and move on. But, …

How do you let go too, when the world already has?