It was as if there was nothing left for me to live for. They took everything I had: my family, my house, my land and even my soul. All of it was gone, and there was nothing left inside of me. I looked out to the one thing that was still mine- my flock of sheep. Since the soldiers burned our house, Lyla and I had been sleeping in the fields near the church, snuggling next to the sheep to stay warm. I felt a tear roll down my hot face. I did not like to think of her gone. Where was she? Dead? In prison? I did not know. As I continued to gaze at the sheep, I heard someone calling to me.
"Excuse me, sir! Sir!" I looked over my shoulder to see a woman running towards me whom I did not recognize. She was an older woman with soft wrinkles between her brows. She had a sense of urgency in her voice. "Sir, your sheep! Please, I beg you, may I take your sheep? My family will die... Please sir, please help us!" I moved my head back towards the flock. They're small white bodies were perfectly content to just stand in one place and graze on whatever grass was left in the field. Everything I had was already taken by the soldiers and soon, I would be gone too. Maybe, I thought, this family of hers might make it through. "You can have my sheep," I told her.
The lady looked at me with a tender smile. Tears started falling down her aging face. She took my cold hands into hers and kissed them. "May God watch over you," she told me. And with that she rounded up my sheep and took them back down the path from where she came.
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