I watched as my girls jumped, laughed and played on their trampoline. I was relaxed the sun beating on my face and the smell of spring in the air relieved any tightness I may have been holding. I mentally shook my head as the images of my past came floating in. The sound of guns going off, the feel of bullets pressing into my flesh. The awful smell of death everywhere. No. I have to focus on my girls, on their innocence that doesn’t yet know about our world; how cruel and violent this place can be.

The death and destruction not only happening in the war but spilling on our streets like an infestation. How I wish I could turn back time. I want to hold and touch my children again but now I can’t. All I can do is sit here and watch, and when there are times when I can’t even do that all I can do is relive the day when everything went black. Remembering the sound echoing around me like a clap of thunder, feeling the searing pain through my chest, watching the red soak into my shirt and finally falling to the ground knowing at that very moment I’d made the wrong choice.