Abandoned

Recently, on one of my walks along the lake I was surprised to come upon one small gosling sitting by itself. I have never seen any of them without their parents, but there it was, looking lonely and small. I thought maybe it was hurt, so I nudged it with my foot.

 When I poked it, the little gosling got up and trudged along on the sidewalk. 

I followed it for a while, then saw a goose family coming in from the lake. I picked up the little gosling and took it to the edge of the lake, hoping maybe they would take it in with their own family. I have heard that geese will do that. Sadly, they ignored it and went back into the lake again without it. I left the gosling at the edge of the lake, but couldn't stop thinking about it. The next day when I went for my walk I wondered what had happened to that little lonely gosling. It wasn't until I got to the end of the lake that I saw something that gave me hope. 

I saw a pair of geese with just one gosling. Perhaps none of theirs hatched and  they took pity on this lost one and adopted it. 

The picture of the lonely little gosling stayed with me. That could have been my story. I was born during the German occupation in Ukraine in 1943. The Germans were defeated and my parents, my two year old brother and I, a five month old, left Ukraine by train. We ended up in a refugee camp in German occupied Poland. The Germans treated us well. There were lots of young mothers with babies. The director of the camp decided that infants must be separated from their families in another building to avoid the spread of disease. Several nurses were assigned to look after us at night, but our mothers could not see us until the next morning. 

My mother and I are in the second row, fourth from the right. 

It must have been difficult for these mothers to leave their babies in the hands of strangers. The babies  had to adjust to not feeding on demand as well. I have a fairly large scar left by a heating lamp that got too close to my skin when I was treated for a sore, probably due to a lack of diaper change. 

In today's newspaper I read the following:

"Israel's military campaign has killed over 4,000 people in Hamas-run Gaza, mostly women and children ...and left people almost completely reliant on foreign aid". 

I know why I can't forget that little gosling. It reminds me of the horrors I see on the news every night-- children in the Gaza strip, sore and bleeding, desperately holding up empty bowls for food, or Ukrainian children taken from their parents... that could have been me!