I was visiting a memorial to my late father's first cousin killed in Ireland nearly a century ago.  

Next to it was a headstone that told a desperately sad tale of another's loss. 

................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

Heartbreak etched in heartless stone

Rang the saddest of sad knells;

The tribute of one left to cope alone...

A husband killed at the Dardanelles

 

Ye gods - the man was fifty five!

Too old for reckless martial strife;

Denied the right to return alive

To a teenage son and loving wife.

 

Then I read the words below

And knew that heartache hadn't gone;

Every fibre in me shouted "NO!"

At the death of the young son ten years on.

 

I stood there in awe of that widow's pain

Facing  the loss of both loved ones dying,

When through the gloom and the weeping rain

I seemed to hear a woman crying.