From Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

 1/23

341

From Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain 

When the war started and her world turned upside down, she was my age. Her whole life ahead of her; she was in her second year of school, and had a fiance she was eager to marry (78). I’m in my second year of college now, and this passage made me wonder what my life would be like if a war started now. Would the boys at HPU have to enlist? Brittain had to leave school in her second year to become a VAD nurse for the war effort (78). If a war broke out, would I have to leave college and help support my family? What would it feel like to have my college experience and my future taken from me so suddenly?

“Long after the family had gone to bed and the world had grown silent, I crept into the dining room to be alone with Edward’s portrait. Carefully closing the door, I turned on the light and looked at the pale, pictured face, so dignified, so steadfast, so tragically mature. He had been through so much –far, far more than those beloved friends who had died at an earlier stage of the interminable War, leaving him alone to mourn their loss.” (81)

This scene broke me while I was reading it. I am an older sister. You can tell how stunned she is, even though she foresaw his death. She had not heard from him in a while and after receiving bad news about the area he was located in, she had expected the worst (79). The news was still just as shocking. You can feel how out of control she feels when you read this scene. She is so powerless, and you begin to think about the questions she may be asking herself at this moment. What did he look like when she last saw him? How did it feel to outlive many of the boys he fought beside? How did he face death? These are questions she might be thinking while staring at her beloved brother’s portrait, completely helpless and left alone in the dark (81). 

I, just like Vera, am close with my younger brother. The thought of not knowing where he could be or how he is or even if he is safe or not would kill me. I think that because I am the oldest sister, I have a sort of maternal instinct that I’ve naturally inherited very early. Vera suffered many losses, one being her entire youth, but I think the greatest loss was her brother.