When War Came

I love May.
I always have.

Maybe it is because of the new life-ness of spring that suffuses nearly
everything.

Maybe it is because it is the month of my birth, and May birthdays
are still a sweet memory.

But there's another May memory that entered my life at a very
young age.

It is not a memory of innocence, but of evil.  The shadow of that memory
has dimmed over the years, but it has never faded altogether.

This is that story:

Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived in a farmhouse. 
There were cows in the barn attached to the house, chickens in
the chicken coop, pigs in the pigsty, a horse in the horse barn,
and bees in the beehives. 

The boy was happy, for all was well.

But shortly after the little boy had his 6^th birthday, something very
frightening happened.

His birthday had been wonderful.  The early day in May had been warm,
like a summer day.  All growing things were rushing to show off their colors
and smell and beauty.  The little boy loved this time of year, when the cattle
were back in the fields, farmers were plowing, and all the children were playing outside.

But one morning in this beautiful springtime, the little boy woke with a start. 
He heard voices outside the window of his bedroom, many voices, talking
loud and fast, as people do when they are excited or afraid. 
And then the boy heard something else: the droning of an engine,

a great big engine not far away. 
Maybe that’s why there were people outside talking so much, even though it

was only breakfast time.

The boy was curious and for some reason felt fear flutter inside. 
He quickly got dressed.

Nobody was in the kitchen.  Everybody must be outside, he thought. 
When he came outside, he saw his Dad and Mom, and his brother and
older sister gathered in front of the house, busy talking to a group of neighbors. 

And the noise of the engine was much louder now. 
But the boy didn’t see an engine.  Everybody was looking up at the sky. 
When the boy looked up too, he saw where the awful rumble came from:
hundreds and hundreds of airplanes darkened the sky, like a huge swarm

of locusts he had heard his Dad read about from the Bible.

The boy ran to his Mom. 
He could tell by her face that something very serious was happening.

“What’s wrong, Mom?  Why are all those airplanes in the sky?”

His Mom took his hand and pulled him closer.  Her voice trembled
when she said simply, “It’s war.”

The boy was too young to understand fully what that meant,
but he knew it was something that was very bad. 

He heard people talking about the dirty Germans who had invaded
their country and were bombing the big cities in the south. 
It was the first time the boy began to understand that there were
enemies in the land, in his land, enemies that would make life dangerous.

From that day the boy’s self-conscious life began, and he would
never again feel completely safe in the world into which he had been born. 
For the next five years, fear would be a constant companion.

The family gathered around the table for breakfast that morning
later than usual.  Everyone waited quietly for the father to pray
the morning prayer.  They listened to every word as the father
prayed earnestly for God to protect them from the enemy, to bring
back peace, and to be especially near those who were fighting or fleeing

for their lives.

No one had expected a war, though many had not trusted Hitler. 
No one knew what this war would mean for the little country of the
Netherlands or for all the other countries of Europe. 
But on this day, May 10, 1940, a dark cloud of an enemy air force
had appeared in the sky, and even the young boy had a bad feeling
that the cloud would only grow bigger and darker.