She knelt on the damp, mossy ground, resting her face against the top of the cool granite stone, simple and fitting for a soldier. It was the closest thing she had, this little memorial, for his earthly remains rested far away in foreign soil, in the harsh expanse of the East.

“He looks just like you, Gerd. He smiles like you and he laughs like you, and… every day, it’s like you’re still here somehow.” Bitter tears rolled down her cheeks, the tragedy too much to bear.

“I wish you could have met him.” she whispered sadly, collecting herself momentarily before breaking down again. Had he known, as he lay there dying, that his longed-for son was being born? Had he known that those were the last hours of his life? That he would never see her again, never hold his child, never see Jürgen grow up?

She knew it wasn’t true, but at night when she lay awake and wept softly so as not to wake the boy, she wondered if she was cursed. Was that the price she had to pay: to lose her husband to gain her son?

The only comfort came in the reports that he was stoic and collected to the end – every bit an officer. That was a point of pride, a small consolation. He had died a hero’s death, with a cigarette between his lips and his trademark stubbornness intact, giving orders to his men even as his pulse weakened. He had died with honor, for the Fatherland and for the Volk.

For them.

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She loved the scars on his body

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This razor-thin trace along his cheekbone, the ridge at his temple, the nick behind his hairline – all evidence of those heady days as a student, flushed with beer and optimism, his whole life ahead of him and his courage written in the blood that splashed across his opponent’s blade.

She kisses them softly, her fingers tracing the jagged wound across his chest, her nails following the path of the surgeon’s scalpel, feeling the beating of his heart, so close to where the shrapnel had pierced his skin. He stirs briefly in his sleep, unaware of the angel watching over him, his battered body weary, at peace only in unconsciousness. The flawed skin spoke of strength and of resilience, of discipline and bravery.

What could be more beautiful in a man?

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