We Will Remember Them

Today is Remembrance Day, but I've been wearing a poppy all week. I've come to learn the value of my freedom here in Canada, and the sacrifice people made many years ago for our country to be what it is today. One way I can truly appreciate this is by showing up at a local Remembrance Day Parade, of which there are many, in every community in Canada, large and small.

Way back, when I was in high school, I joined the local Air Cadet squadron, where I learned about discipline and community and leadership and other good values. In my last year there, I was chosen to read a poem to a hall full of townspeople.  At the tender age of 16, I could hear my own voice shake. An orator I never did make!  For most of those years, the parade consisted of freezing in inadequate uniforms in the cold November air.

In more recent years, I have chosen to participate in Waterloo's ceremonies. One year it really rained hard, a cold November rain, and we talked about not going. I figured those soldiers suffered far more than that in those trenches, surely I could stand in the rain for an hour. There was no more talk of not going. We go now, no matter what the weather. Another year, our local MPP Elizabeth Witmer, gave the address, and had the whole audience wiping their eyes. Every year is very moving.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left 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.

exerpt from the poem The Fallen, by Laurence Binyon