This story was sent to us by the mother of a nun and referred to her own family.
During the German occupation we suffered a lot. We saw days when in our house there was nothing else, but water. Then our father took us by the hand and climbing the mountain that rose near our village, we picked up lupin. My poor mother boiled it for a long time but the herbs didn’t lose their bitter taste. However, we tried to relieve our hunger with them, but our eyes were burning cause of their bitterness. Besides this, our elder sister was sick. And my two brothers who were working and were in their period of growth didn’t have what to eat either.
Once my mother, have no idea from where, got a piece of chocolate. Maybe an English soldier might have given it to her? Or she might have got it from a charity organization? I don’t know. But my dear mother didn’t eat a bit of it. She brought it and furtively gave it to my sick sister, hoping that if she ate it, she would get better. But it didn’t happen so, because after some time my sister died. God took her to Him. My sick sister didn’t eat the chocolate either. Hearing that the next day my mother and I were to go in town with the donkey for some important matter and we had to walk for at least 8-10 hours, she called me stealthily and told me: ”Take it and eat it, sister, to strengthen yourself, cause tomorrow you have a long way to walk.”
I took it and kept it for the next day’s journey. In the morning my kind mother put me on the back of the donkey and she walked beside it. At a certain moment I asked her to climb on the donkey too, but she didn’t want. She felt sorry for me, cause I was small. Then I took the piece of chocolate out of my pocket and gave it to her saying: ”Take it and eat it, mother, so that you would strengthen yourself, cause you’ve been walking for so long.” Before she had the time to refuse it, I put it in her hand. Then she stopped for a while and looked and the chocolate with tears in her eyes. The piece of chocolate was back in her hands.
A family suffering of hunger and sickness proved such morality, love and self-denial!
Let us always remember it and follow its example.
