What follows is my response to the new GirlieOnTheEdge word prompt for this week. The word is absent and the instructions are to write six sentences, no more no less. So here are my six sentences.

Since I published a novel set during World War II a month ago, the first thing that came to my mind when challenged to think about absence was “absent without leave.”

To me, though, the outstanding characteristic of that period was people’s unyielding presence.

I wrote about a family, an ordinary family, who just kept showing up—not just to fight the war, but also to support the warriors who did.

I know mostly about farm families because I came from one, and one of my favorite photos depicts my aunt, in a dress she made herself out of flour sacks, sitting next to a pile of worn-out tires saved for the war effort.

I have a newspaper clipping, accompanied by a photo of my grandfather with some of his hogs, that reports on stepped-up farm production, with much of the labor force gone, to feed the troops—and some left-over ration books with icons of commodities punched out.

In the end, the survivors’ faces held the presence of absence—the sons who never returned, the lost peace of mind in the faces of the ones who did, and the years torn from lives that never quite recovered.