Today has been a day for remembering something so horrific that our uncles, sons, fathers, mothers, sisters, volunteered for so many decades ago. Not to recall the horrors of war, but to celebrate those that participated, fought and died in that war. I’ll not pretend to know the depth of their feelings and fears but suspect that each of them grasped at bits of joy if ever it came their way. Loves, relationships, a good meal at a farm kitchen, one day without the sound of guns, blue sky after the grey days of winter, the freedom of movement within a battalion when others were imprisoned, the joy for each of them coming home. Because while they fought and were injured, they too remembered their homes, the families left behind, the blue skies and birds of prairies or mountains, the snow that was at the edge of a shovel or a snow ball fight that ended in laughter and hot chocolate. The remembering that we have carries us from today to yesterday or decades ago and back again to where we sit, pen in hand, or walking safely under the trees or out on the open prairie. The birds in each remembrance may be different from the kiwi birds of New Zealand to the meadow larks of Saskatchewan to the eagles flying high over the west coast. It all ties us to a memory in a moment in a past time than can bring us to a home far away or around the corner. Remembering that there were also too many that would never come home ~ it is the only way we have of honouring them. Remembering is an invisible piece of art that we hang in our minds - our own private art collection that may grow foggy with age but never gathering dust.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left to grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them”
~ Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen
(1869 ~ 1943)
** Authors note: this essay was inspired by the poem “Remember” ~ Joy Harjo, a Native American poet who served as Poet Laureate for three terms from 2019 ~ 2022 in the United States.
