On the wall in my mother's bedroom there was a photo, which showed a soldier with a gun. Below the photo was the word "Speaking". "Who's that soldier called Speaking?" I asked one day. "He was Harold." She said. "He was my only brother. When the Second World War began, Harold was eighteen. I was twelve then, and my sisters were ten and nine". "Harold liked to play with us, and we often quarreled. When we quarreled, we said:We're not speaking to you. But before long we were all happy again, and then we said: I'm speaking now. Are you speaking to me?" "When the war broke out, Harold joined the army. A month later, he came to see us. He brought the gun to show us. Then he went miles away to the war. We didn't see him for three years, three long, empty years. We didn't often hear from him. But one day in May there was a loud bang on the front door..." "I ran to open it. It was Harold! He was an old Harold, a thinner Harold. He looked at me with his two green eyes and smiled. That smile was just the same as before, then he said one word: 'speaking'". "I didn't...I couldn't...answer. I just fell into his arms and he dropped his gun. He stayed with us for a month. We played all our old games again. Then he went back to the war, and never came back again. So I wrote the word on the photo." Why did the mother hang the photo in her bedroom?
She wanted to keep a memory of her childhood. It could awake her happy memories. It could show that her brother was a great man. She hung it there in memory of her brother.