“My shoes click softly on the stone floor, the cool air refreshing on my still warm skin from the summer sun shining outside these walls. It’s peaceful here, and our voices are soft in response to the muted quiet of this old English church. My eyes dance across the walls to row upon row of names carved in stone, the boys who had left their hometown and never came back. They were younger than me now, many of them only seventeen when they were buried.”
                                                Stow-on-the-Wold, St. Edward’s Church, 2015

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    I think of how much more life I have been given already, at only 24 years old. I’m newly married now, and have my own home. So many of those young men who went to fight never had the chance to fall in love, get married, build a home or have children. And yet, because of their sacrifice, those are the very things I have the opportunity to have.

 No, I will not forget. I will remember those who have given their lives. I will remember those who went and came back, like my grandfather. I will continue to pray for the friends and family I have that are in service now.

Today I am humbled and grateful, as I am every year as we stop to honour those who have given so much. We will remember.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

-John McCrae