Sunday, March 08, 2009

Once Upon A Time...

I was asked about my earliest childhood memory. It must have been that traumatic day, during the war, when I was standing in the middle of the road, as my mother told me to stay put while she takes my sister to the shelter.
I could hear the bombs and they were close, so close that in the mind of a 3-4 year-old, the attackers were right behind that green sign in the picture, 3 meters away from my designated relay station. My mom runs towards me and picks me up in her arms and runs back to the shelter. Both my sister and I are now safe and sound, my mom crumbles...
We spent the following two days in the shelter, which conveniently communicated with a mini-market. And I thought I was the luckiest 3 year-old, eating candy and chocolate a gogo! We shared the shelter with another woman and her daughter, it was more of an underground closet space. I can even remember how saddened I felt when I dozed off only to wake up and find out that my mother had told my sister and the other girl a story about some little princess living once upon a time, in a land far far away.