Cry, and you cry alone. And then you will look like a complete moron in front of 800 people on a stage during a Remembrance Day ceremony.
It's safe to say I wear my heart on my sleeve. I cry easily. When I am telling stories. During movies. I cry with pride for my children. I cry over music. When I am having a bad day. I've even shed tears reading articles, listening to the radio, watching sitcoms and simply lost in my own thoughts.
Jeesh, the way I describe it, you'd think I never had dry eyes. Let me reassure you, I laugh far more than I cry. But I do cry easily.
Today our community held its annual Remembrance Day service. I sing with seven friends in a chorus. We were asked to sing after the roll call of the dead and after the bugle blew 'The Last Post'.
I always find it an emotional service for many reasons. I can feel myself get choked up as soon as the bagpipes start to wail and the Legion members are marched in. The older I get, and the more history I learn, the more affected and aware I am by the meaning of the moment.
To add to my sensitivity, I have been immersed in the sadness and loss of the young soldiers our country has lost in Afghanistan since the start of the war in the middle east. While working on November's issue (it had a two page spread of the 72 Canadians killed since Oct 2001) I spent many hours feeling terribly for their mothers, wives and families. In laying out their photos and matching their names I could see them up close; the color of their eyes, the pores in their skin, their teeth. To realize they had been flesh and bone - been someone's child, someone's lover, someone's best friend - brought a whole new level of reality to their sacrifice.
This morning, I could feel it coming on when the piper started playing. That familiar way my breath catches in my chest and my nose begins to tickle, then sting. My eyes brim with water and although I try to will it away, there always is one tear that slips away.
The flags, the music, the thought of all those families suffering today and their combined grief. The terrible mourning. But I also feel sad for the old men and women who march on this day. Those who hold their heads up and salute the dead. The stooped shoulders and tired eyes. Knarled hands and white hair. Some, now too old to stand during the service, sit, bent and solemn. Wiping their eyes with tissue. Each year, their numbers dip a little lower. They are a dying breed - those survivors.
My thoughts drifted to Maureen Eykelenboom and her family this morning, in Comox, BC, preparing for the service there. This is the second of numerous years that she will face the Roll Call of The Dead and her son's name on the list. As a mother, I ache for her, as I cannot imagine the strength it takes to continue to live with the kind of broken heart that comes from a wound like the loss of your handsome and brilliant son.
We've sung the song at least a hundred times. We sang it two years ago at the Remembrance Day service in our town. I didn't cry then. So it caught me by surprise.
As we passed through the first two sections of the music, the melody and words caught me at the moment I caught the wet eyes of an elderly woman in uniform. My voice caught in my throat and my eyes burned and blurred and I couldn't sing a note.
There I stood, like a crying fool in front of the entire room. It wasn't delicate tears either. I shook and shuddered like it was my own pain. I am embarassed about that, although I shouldn't be.
I think it IS our pain. It's a common pain of the women and men who are able to feel and appreciate the freedom and opportunity bought at another's expense. A silent gratitude and recognition to all those men, women, sons and daughters who faught only to die for the miriads of generations they would never see. It is a moment for us to thank all those who "paid the ultimate price."
Maybe from where they are now, they see that we remember them. That these grateful strangers still mourn for them. And maybe they rest, assured we will NEVER let them be forgotten.
It's safe to say I wear my heart on my sleeve. I cry easily. When I am telling stories. During movies. I cry with pride for my children. I cry over music. When I am having a bad day. I've even shed tears reading articles, listening to the radio, watching sitcoms and simply lost in my own thoughts.
Jeesh, the way I describe it, you'd think I never had dry eyes. Let me reassure you, I laugh far more than I cry. But I do cry easily.
Today our community held its annual Remembrance Day service. I sing with seven friends in a chorus. We were asked to sing after the roll call of the dead and after the bugle blew 'The Last Post'.
I always find it an emotional service for many reasons. I can feel myself get choked up as soon as the bagpipes start to wail and the Legion members are marched in. The older I get, and the more history I learn, the more affected and aware I am by the meaning of the moment.
To add to my sensitivity, I have been immersed in the sadness and loss of the young soldiers our country has lost in Afghanistan since the start of the war in the middle east. While working on November's issue (it had a two page spread of the 72 Canadians killed since Oct 2001) I spent many hours feeling terribly for their mothers, wives and families. In laying out their photos and matching their names I could see them up close; the color of their eyes, the pores in their skin, their teeth. To realize they had been flesh and bone - been someone's child, someone's lover, someone's best friend - brought a whole new level of reality to their sacrifice.
This morning, I could feel it coming on when the piper started playing. That familiar way my breath catches in my chest and my nose begins to tickle, then sting. My eyes brim with water and although I try to will it away, there always is one tear that slips away.
The flags, the music, the thought of all those families suffering today and their combined grief. The terrible mourning. But I also feel sad for the old men and women who march on this day. Those who hold their heads up and salute the dead. The stooped shoulders and tired eyes. Knarled hands and white hair. Some, now too old to stand during the service, sit, bent and solemn. Wiping their eyes with tissue. Each year, their numbers dip a little lower. They are a dying breed - those survivors.
My thoughts drifted to Maureen Eykelenboom and her family this morning, in Comox, BC, preparing for the service there. This is the second of numerous years that she will face the Roll Call of The Dead and her son's name on the list. As a mother, I ache for her, as I cannot imagine the strength it takes to continue to live with the kind of broken heart that comes from a wound like the loss of your handsome and brilliant son.
We've sung the song at least a hundred times. We sang it two years ago at the Remembrance Day service in our town. I didn't cry then. So it caught me by surprise.
As we passed through the first two sections of the music, the melody and words caught me at the moment I caught the wet eyes of an elderly woman in uniform. My voice caught in my throat and my eyes burned and blurred and I couldn't sing a note.
There I stood, like a crying fool in front of the entire room. It wasn't delicate tears either. I shook and shuddered like it was my own pain. I am embarassed about that, although I shouldn't be.
I think it IS our pain. It's a common pain of the women and men who are able to feel and appreciate the freedom and opportunity bought at another's expense. A silent gratitude and recognition to all those men, women, sons and daughters who faught only to die for the miriads of generations they would never see. It is a moment for us to thank all those who "paid the ultimate price."
Maybe from where they are now, they see that we remember them. That these grateful strangers still mourn for them. And maybe they rest, assured we will NEVER let them be forgotten.
on November 12, 2007, 8:51 am
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