Today is Remembrance Day- lest we forget.
91 years have come and gone since the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.
I’m approaching 50, and honestly, I’m quite thankful war is a pretty foreign concept for me.
Yes, I took history.
Yes, I’ve seen documentaries, movies, parades & the speeches of veterans.
But, like a lot of people my age, the Second World War ended a full decade before my parents met, and as such there is, unfortunately but understandably, a disconnect to reality of the events in the previous century.
Truthfully, the longest lasting Remembrance Day memory for me came from my Grandmother.
Hospitalized at Huronia District Hospital at age 92 on Remembrance Day in 1982, I asked my Grandmother a simple question about the things she remembered from World War 1.
In those day, my Grandfather, a man I never met, was the lighthouse keeper at Hope Island and from April through mid November he and my Grandmother were stationed on the island, isolated from almost everything, in particular, the day to day reports from the First World War.
On November 11th, 1918 it was time to close the Lighthouse and head back to the mainland.
As my Grandmother described it, the day was grey and there was a barren look to the shoreline as they puttered along the waterway home.
About this time in recounting the tale, my Grandmother got a far away look in her eyes as she remembered the moment, and how as the boat made the turn into Midland Bay, the horns and sirens from the coal docks, the lumber yards, the grain elevators and the town in general all sounded and made an ear splitting noise.
” It was then we knew the war was over, ” she said.
Remembrance Day- Lest We Forget
I’m Fred Wallace