In Canada, where Remembrance Day is commemorated (never
celebrated), on this date, Nov. 11, people pause to reflect on the impact of
war on family members.
Growing up in small town Ontario, Canada, I literally didn’t
know of a single family who did not suffer significant loss(es) from the
horrors of foreign wars.
In my case, my Uncle Earl, whom I never met, died as a young
man, leaving his wife and baby children without a husband and father, when the troop
ship he was on was attacked and sunk in the North Atlantic.
My childhood memories are of my grandfather, a veteran of
the WWI parading on our small city’s main street, wearing his dress war uniform
with attached medals. We watched solemnly, silently from street side. Proudly,
yes, but also deeply saddened by the grim, resigned look on the faces of all
those straight-backed older men and women marching past.
Tis in Remembrance that Canadians gather still in honor of those
who served, and in that the day mirrors the respect shown in the United States
for those who fought to uphold our way of life.
But it is a deeper “Remembrance” that resonates with me, and
it is why, generations later, millions of Canadians wear pins today (Nov. 11)
in the colour and shape of red poppies to honor the untold number to those –
many of whom were of the age of today’s millennials and Gen Z’ers – who died and
are buried in European soil where I’ve been blessed enough to see the poppies
growing across fields as vast as the feelings I’m writing about.
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