Canities

Canities (full name: Canities subita), also called Marie Antoinette syndrome or Thomas More syndrome, is a condition of hair turning white very rapidly due to stress or trauma.

Let's have the poem first. Then I will tell you why this word has called to me.

~

That man

with his receding hairline and grey temples

mocks my feeble attempts at life

at my age

he rode on horseback all day

across golden fields

~

he does not talk

about the war

~

his story spills in droplets

I frown at his stinky feet

he says soldiers’ footwraps smelled worse when

the cold kept them in dugouts for weeks

his stomach still turns

~

that dark-haired boy turned fourteen

just after German troops crossed the border

but Soviet soldiers came first

~

he only mentioned once

his auntie’s face

while guns were aimed at her husband

whose hair turned white

~

that stooped bald man

full story lost forever

says he lived life as he wanted

and can go now

~

he does not talk

about the war

~

The link to Penny Fuller's Challenge: https://vocal.media/writers/part-c-the-a-z-of-unusual-words

The story behind the story:

There are many interesting unusual words on the list here. However, Canites caught my eye and I knew immediately that this was what I had to write about. Why? Because of a deeply personal family story I heard from my father many years ago.

When the second World War started, he lived in his uncle's estate in the Eastern Borderlands of Poland. It was a tumultuous region at the time: German troops advancing from the west, Soviet soldiers attacking from the east and, on top of that, some Ukrainian insurgents saw this as an opportunity to do away with the local Polish population. As an aside, the region became part of the USSR after the war (Ukraine these days), and all the land owned by my father's family was seized by the state.

Anyway, my father never liked to talk about the war but once mentioned his worst memory from that time. Soldiers came to the village (can't remember their nationality) and announced that they would execute all adult men. Fortunately, my father's uncle managed to hide in a barn before they came. The entire family was led to a courtyard, including my father, his aunt and other people. All of a sudden, they noticed the soldiers coming with the uncle. When the aunt saw that he had been found, she raised both hands to her head and as she lowered them, my father saw thick clumps of hair between her fingers. She literally started shedding hair due to the stress. As for the uncle, he was dark-haired when he entered the barn. When the soldiers led him out of it, his hair was completely white.

This story ends well. The uncle survived on that day. He was about to be shot when the soldiers got the news about the approaching enemy troops and fled the village. Only the trauma remained and influenced not only the lives of those who were there but also the lives of their relatives and descendants.

This story feels pertinent at this time, when a lot of people worldwide are creating their own memories of war. Their trauma will also weave through generations to come.