A friend from primary school days came to stay this week. We caught up on each other’s families, reminisced about school days, laughed and cried about the ups and downs of life.

The conversation turned to our secondary school and whether we had been fully equipped for life. She felt that we had not been adequately prepared. I agreed that we were over protected. Neither of us went out except to the the church youth group until we were eighteen. She blamed the school. I suggested it was an attitude within the town.

Our town was bombed during the war, not to the scale of the east end of London but many of the German bombers shed any unused bombs on their way home. Some targeted the engineering factory on the banks of the river Medway, many just loosed them randomly. Hardship continued after peace was signed in 1945. I had a ration card as an infant and remember lining up with my siblings for an orange flavoured spoonful of vitamins and another of cod liver oil – a disgusting mix.

In 1956 the town was one of the worst affected areas in the national polio epidemic. There were six reported deaths in four months and many people were crippled by the disease. Some families lost a parent.

None of this was mentioned in our childhood. We heard funny stories about the war. My grandfather was in an outside toilet when a bomb blew the wooden walls away. He pulled up his trousers and continued running his bakery business – a reserved occupation. We chuckled as I remembered the story but neither this nor the polio outbreak were funny.

As we talked we realised that the community put the past behind them and focussed on the children. Teachers, nurses, and many others who had lost their sweethearts and did not marry devoted their lives to bringing up the next generation.

Victors blame the defeated for wars. We look for scapegoats in a pandemic. We want to take the high moral ground.

Our community did not do this. They picked up the strands of daily life, and looked forward. People gave up their own hopes and plans and put their energy into the next generation. That is responsibility.

Few of their generation remain but we realised as we chatted that we owe them a debt of gratitude for preventing families from being split up, for keeping children healthy in hardship, and for giving us a good start in life.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

This post was written in response to the Five Minute Friday prompt RESPONSIBILITY.