Remembrance day has passed and like every year I find my thoughts not just settling on the horrors of war but on my Grandfather. Grandpa was a soldier and brought three things back with him from the war: Medals, a steel chest, and things he’d never talk about.
To little Mumbles, my grandfather was a giant of a man, probably the biggest man that ever existed yet always ever so quiet. He was always found watching golf and had a steady supply of butterscotch candies to hand out. If we were well behaved we would get to look through his telescope at the ships passing by.
Grandpa was a fairly strict parent according to my father. This was not the case with his grandchildren. Grandpa always seemed a little distant and a little startled by us but I don’t remember him ever raising his voice nor forbidding anything. In his way, I think he loved us deeply and his way of showing this was a leftover from a bygone era where forthright emotion was not acceptable.
The Day
As a child, I did not understand Remembrance day. Holidays were just fun days that you didn’t have to go to school on. In second or third grade one of our pre-Remembrance day activities was to make a booklet featuring the poem “In Flanders Fields” and draw pictures along with each verse. We were supposed to take them home to our parents, but that didn’t seem right to me.
Every Remembrance day that I can remember we went out to lunch with my Grandpa, this was tradition and the day was always about him. Remembrance day to me was just Grandpas day and since on Mothers day we make a card for our mothers and on Fathers day we make a card for our Fathers, logically anything made for Remembrance day should go to Grandpa. So filled with pride and happiness I presented my booklet to Grandpa and wished him a happy Remembrance Day. He stared at that booklet for a long time.
Ever so slowly Grandpa flipped through the pages then said thank you. For a long time after that, I wasn’t sure if I had done something wrong or if he had liked the gift. Then one day I noticed something on his wall. His medals from the war had always been hung in a very noticeable place on the wall and hanging right above them was the In Flanders Fields booklet I had made. He kept it with his medals until the day he died.