Feature Article November 12, 2003
LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb HomeRemembrance Day, 2003
A
light rain, a chill wind, and the lake in the distance grey and heavy
as lead. The day after an election where we voted freely and in
privacy, a crowd of people leave their usual Tuesday morning
activities to meet at the villages symbolic war grave site.
Theres the few men who are left, and a double line of younger
military men and women who stand rigid with the rain on their bare
faces. There are rows and rows of brightly clothed schoolchildren, and
the rest of us huddled shivering under umbrellas. A young woman plays
Last Post, wreaths are laid, prayers are spoken. We head back to
our regular lives quietly, thoughtfully. This scene repeats itself
today in villages like ours all across Canada, for thousands of miles,
time zone after time zone.
This Was My Brother
By Mona Gould
This was my brother
At Dieppe,
Quietly a hero
Who gave his life
Like a gift, Withholding nothing.
His youth....his love....
His enjoyment of being alive...
His future, like a book
With half the pages still uncut
This was my brother
At Dieppe...
The one who built me a doll house
When I was seven,
Complete to the last small picture frame,
Nothing forgotten.
He was awfully good at fixing things,
At stepping into the breach when he was needed.
Thats what he did at Dieppe;
He was needed.
And even death must have been a little ashamed
At his eagerness!
