I received this beautiful story on Remembrance Day from a cousin...I just had to share her story. Thanks Barb for lending it to us!
Thanks for the Rememberance Day blog...
Aunt Betty had a brother killed in the war...
Her father had died within days of her being born... and her oldest brother, Jim, became her father figure in her young life...
He died in February of 1945.... He was 23 years old. Mom was 11. She took his death very hard. My childhood memory of rememberance day, is either of freezing at the cenataph, or, of participating in the service (Brownies/Guides)... or, if we couldn't get there, we would be in front of the tv, watching the service... mom always spent the day in tears....
Not long after Uncle Bud died, Mom and I went on a trip to Europe. After 10 years of caring for dad, and 3 months of difficult home care before he died... my husband suggested the she and I just "get out of here" for a bit.... so we did.
Other than the obvious tourist stops of Paris and Rome, mom's biggest wish for our trip was to visit the grave site of her brother - the uncle I'd never met. Our tour guide was very accomodating, and arrangements were made.
It was one of the most moving, epiphony days of my life.
I would have said that given my experience with Rememberance Day... and, as I grew to an adult, my understanding of facts figures etc giving the day a better sense of reality... I would have said that I had a terriffic grasp of "rememberance"....
That was untill I visited my uncle's grave site about 30 km outsite of Munich....
Visiting ANY war grave site in Europe is ... well... truly mind boggling! The pictures that you see on tv... rows and rows and rows of white tomb stones... they aren't taking pictures of one site... there are hundreds!
My uncle's cemetary was small... with just under 3000 graves... but it looked massive to me! We spent about a half an hour there... took a rubbing of the stone, put a poppy banner on Uncle Jim's grave, as well as a small Canadian flag...As we stood there, I realized that Jim had been buried with 3 other members of his flight crew... we put Canada flags on thier graves too ... we were there on July 1st, and I had stuck some flags in my luggage, in case we could celebrate... I decided that the flags left for the "boys" would be a far greater celebration than anything our tour guide would come up with!
Mom and I were the first (and probbly only) visitors to Uncle Jim's grave site. It was good for mom... she was already grieving for Bud...and now, she could finally say good bye to a brother that she had been grieving for for over 60 years.
For me.... Rememberance Day will never quite be the same... that same fall, Nov 11th found me watching the service from Ottawa, on tv... tears falling the whole time. Even though I had watched mom all those years.... now the men were "real"... and there were thousands and thousands of them...all who gave thier lives to stop a world terror....
there's no point to this email... other than to share... and... suggest... someday, when your kids are grown and you are able to travel a bit.... if ever you go to Europe... take a few minutes of one day, and visit a war grave...Even if you don't know anyone... it makes it far more personal than any Rememberance Day you'll ever experience here!
remembering....
Barb
