There was a point, this past April in France, that the numbers of graves overwhelmed me. After the ceremonies at Vimy, after visiting my Grandfather’s front lines at Vimy, after Hill 70, I tried to get to as many Commonwealth War Grave Cemeteries, where men from Roblin were buried, as I could. Cemetery after cemetery filled with young men, they are everywhere. Suddenly the scale of what happened grabs hold of you, and it fills you with sadness and meloncholy. So many lives unlived, so many families in mourning.
My first war cemetery overwhelmed me on a different, more personal scale. The day I arrived in France I drove to Beny-Sur-Mer CWG cemetery. My namesake, my cousin, lies buried there, a place that has hovered in my consciousness, since I was a little boy. As I drove up to the cemetery and saw the Canadian flag flying over with it, the tears started. They built as I approached Clare’s grave, here was a man who I never knew, long dead before I was born, but who figured so large in my sense of self, and I could not hold them back.
Remembrance Day has long been one of the most important days of my year. It has been that way because of my Grandfather. It is the day I’m closest to him. I understand now, a little more of what he went through, in the cause of doing what was right. I understand a little more, at least a part of what made him the man he was. A man of morels, and compassion, and an incredible sense of right and wrong.
Remembrance day is a day to honour the sacrifices made, and being made by the soldiers of this country. Its not a day to give glory to war, my Grandfather would be the last to glorify that "Hell, from the Devil’s school". But it is a day to recognize just what we ask of young men and women, when doing what is right causes so much suffering and loss. It is a day to thank the men, like my Grandfather, like his comrades, like Clare, like the men and women in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. Men and women who we ask to put their lives in harms way, to do what the rest of us are unable to.
If I was home in Roblin, I’d be standing at Grandpa’s grave right now, honouring, not his being a soldier, but his being a grandparent. Giving thanks for the lessons I learned, and the fun we had.
I miss you Grandpa.
Comments
4 responses
Well said and nicely written Clare.
Thanks Duncan.
I know what you mean about the cemeteries, and the deep sense of melancholy.
I worked at Vimy last summer, (and at the Beaumont-hamel memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment) and it has completely changed the way I view Remembrance Day.
I try not to let it “get” to me, but I feel a definite heaviness in my heart and in my soul, almost, when I look at those rows upon rows of CWGC graves. It’s harrowing.
On a side note, I notice you have a photo of the rubble/church en route to Vimy. I’m not sure if you knew this or not, but in the war the Germans used to use the two “spires” of that church as a landing strip guide, flying in-between them before landing. That’s why they are in pretty bad shape.
Just FYI
Thanks Jackie,
When during the war would that have been? The Abbey is at Mt St. Eloi and was in the Canadian Sector for much of the war. One of the towers was used as an observation post. The twin towers were a well known landmark by the Canadians (and others) in the area. The Abbey itself was demolished after the French Revolution but the facade and towers were left. As far as I knew the towers were damaged by German shelling.
“I stood on the spot that Nine Elms stood, some fifty years gone by,
Looked out to the west to Mont St Eloi, its towers still raised high”
– Alvin Thomas Kines