Remembrance

I watched the CBC's coverage of the proceedings at the National War Memorial in the morning, and pondered the meaning of this day in those two silent minutes of remembrance. As with every year, I couldn't wrap my head around the atrocities so many men and women had to endure to pay the price for freedom. I could only watch as the cameras focused in on the faces of the veterans.

Their eyes, pooled with tears, were turned inward, haunted by past images. What were they remembering? Whose faces were rising from the depths of memory as though it was just yesterday that they last saw their comrades-at-arms?

I always cry during the Last Post. I imagine those lonely notes echoing through the past, calling to the souls of soldiers long dead, buried in faraway fields. They hear that call and stir from their sleep to listen. They remember, as surely as we remember them. Reassured, comforted, they return to their eternal rest, the last notes fading away on the wind.

Lest we forget.