The Punishment of a Long Life – 4

Rebecca was not a stranger to death.

Her father died when she was two and Dotty just a baby.   Her mother took them  to a city where an uncle lived.

In a short time her mother met and married another man.  This one had buried his wife at about the same time her mother buried her husband.

Rebecca had thought he was her father until he died.    She was sixteen then, working at her first job.  She now had to support her mother and sister, then.

In the  crowded neighbourhood where her family lived there were funerals every week.   This one’s father or grandfather or mother or grandmother, sister or brother.

Rebecca grew into a very quiet, polite, unobtrusive person.  She stayed out of the lime light and never shared her opinions with anyone.   What she thought or felt she kept to herself.

When World War II came and the men went off to war, Rebecca got a better job, more money.  And more funerals.

She would have gone to Michael’s funeral, if she had known, but only learned he was dead  nearly three weeks after he had been buried.