Every November, we gather in the cold. The bugle sounds, we stand shoulder to shoulder, poppies pinned close to our hearts. Some of us served. Some of us lost. All of us remember.
I’ve stood at the cenotaph more times than I can count. First as a child outside my church in Centre Wellington, Ont. Then as a cadet, playing Last Post while the wind ripped through the air and snow fell in Grand Valley, Ont.
Every year that I can remember, I’ve been somewhere, taking a moment to reflect. Over the years, I’ve interviewed nearly a hundred veterans from all wars. One of the first, when I was 14, was a Great War veteran. His name escapes me now, but his stories will stay with me forever.
He was part of a trench-raiding team and spent nights in pitch black, going over the top to take out the enemy. He said the screams never left him.
But it’s something they all said to me that I will never forget. As the tones from the bugle race through the air, they all remember them.
They remember their friends, comrades, buddies, and loved ones who are still left overseas, or the ones lucky enough to be buried back home.
They told me about the dreams their friends had. One spoke of being the person who had to tell his childhood friend’s parents their son wasn’t coming home. He said he would never forget that look.
To a soldier, their hands trembled as they turned the pages of old photographs, but their voices never did when they spoke of their friends. They carried the weight of those names long after the medals stopped shining.
As someone who knows the names carved in stone were once boys from every corner of the country, I think of them each year. They had the same wind in their faces, the same streets beneath their boots, the same small-
town dreams.
I think of the young men who left home with hope in their hearts and fear tucked quietly behind it. I think of their mothers who watched trains roll out of town, their letters written on creased paper, their silence that followed.
Every effort to honour those left behind matters, because memory is the thread that keeps their stories from fading.
We live in a time when the noise of the world can drown out quiet acts of respect. But Remembrance Day cuts through that noise. It asks nothing of us but presence, to stand, to listen, to remember.
It’s not about glorifying war. It’s about honouring peace and the price paid to reach it.
So on Nov. 11, I’ll be there again, like I always am. This time, as a journalist and business owner, inside Lloyd Comp. Standing still, poppy pinned, listening to the Last Post drift into silence.
Because remembering isn’t just what we do once a year.
It’s who we are.
