Today I attended the Armstrong/Spallumcheen Remembrance Day Ceremony and was moved by it deeply in two ways.
I have attended Remembrance Day Services every year for most of my life. I attend comfortably removed from any immediate experience of suffering or hardship or loss.
Though, like many people of my generation, we have family members who fought, still serve or died. My aunt, Tante Jopie was a family archivist who kept memories of living as children in Holland during World War 2 alive for us through diaries, letters and photographs. So we will not forget.
Tante Jopie:
“On May 10, 1940, the war broke out and the Germans were in Groningen before they had declared war. There was no fighting where we lived, but it was the beginning of five bad years. The children went to school only half time as the Germans lived in most of our schools. After awhile we had no electricity as the Germans did not want the people to listen to Radio Orange, sent out from England, which kept us up to date on the state of the war, and which encouraged people to be courageous and not give up. There were coded messages for the underground, also.
There was a seal on the electricity meter to prevent us from using electricity, so after awhile father rigged up a bicycle with a dynamo on a stand in the dining room and the children took turns cycling to produce enough energy for one bulb hanging above the dining room table. Everyone sat around the table doing homework, darning socks, knitting, reading. The rest of the house was very dark. All the windows had covers so if there would have been light , nothing could be seen from the outside. The German high command lived across the street from us and they had electricity…..All in great secrecy.”
The families attending the ceremony service today I imagine have similar family histories keeping lives lost close to heart. What struck me about the service today, and what set it apart from other November 11 services in which I have taken part, was the small town closeness of it.
The venue was the Hassen Memorial Arena where locals come for rollerskating, lacross, funerals and other community functions. There is a gym on the upper floor that Ron and I visit regularly. It is equipped with the best well maintained 1980’s equipment money can buy. It overlooks the arena floor so on occasion whilst getting your 12-3-30 treadmill workout in you can pay your birds eye respects to an open casketed beloved community member.
Actually, today, one parks and recreation member did something similar, foregoing one of the 432 metal chairs on the arena floor joining the ceremonies from the elliptical above.
The service was packed. The chairs on the floor filled up. We got there early and sat on the side benches along with another 150 or so behind the plexiglass.
Most Remembrance Day services I have attended have been in big or smallish cities like Vancouver, Ottawa, Maple Ridge and Guelph. They have been rigourously rehearsed and organized. Military like rigour, I am thinking, is important to coordinate live television and fly pasts.
This was different. Loosely rehearsed. The elderly colour guard slightly off step from the commander’s brisk orders but, from the looks of it, that was due more to collective joint pain than lack of attention or will.
The anthems were sung by a gifted, bold throated, one legged, beautiful young Armstrong woman who sang at the microphone with her baby girl on her hip.
The “centotaph” in the arena was a printed replica of the Armstrong Memorial Park Cenotaph pasted onto Styrofoam.
There were kids, lots of them, teens and littles with their parents and grandparents sitting quietly except for the odd seasonal sneeze or a toddler trying to untether from a parent. A couple of mums swatting a baseball caps off pre-teen heads when we stood for the first anthem.
When I say loosely rehearsed that also means that sometimes there were gaps in the service while someone moved into the correct place from the wrong one or when the script got fumbled.
When this happened the arena stayed respectfully hushed, no phones in sight. Unified in attention. Even…especially the kids.
So that was the first thing. This ceremony felt intimate in its imperfection and it drew me in, this sense of community.
Tante Jopie:
“We had enough to eat during the war and father and mother helped several people who needed food because they knew many farmers who could provide food for the hungry. When parts of Holland ran out of food, trucks from South Holland came to our house to pick up food, most of it provided by dad and mother would feed them. We were always amazed at the amount of food these truckers would eat. When we questioned this mother would say that these people had not eaten for days. “
And this is the second thing.
Armstrong/Spallumcheen is largely a farming community where neighbours know and support neighbours. As people filed into the arena, there were families reserving space for other families, hugs and handshakes. A comfortable familiarity. I don’t remember ever arranging to attend a Remembrance Day Service with my city neighbours. This felt different.
This also felt like a who’s who of the entire community. I am pretty sure every business and community group was represented at the wreath laying by a proxy Girl Guide Spark or Boy Scout Beaver. Or a member of the Armstrong Pleasant Valley Secondary School Hawks sports team in uniform.
[Aside 1: Regarding the Hawks. I have never seen so many intentional and impeccable mullets in one place at one time.]
[Aside 2: The PVSS school teams and clubs were recently rebranded as the Hawks from the PVSS Saints (boys) and Sinners (girls) which I find inappropriately amusing.]
I hope these children keep memories of their participation in services like this and the reason for it.
Tante Jopie:
[“Lying awake at night, listening to the Allied bombers flying over their way to Germany, father would come upstairs to tell us not to worry about it. He told us that if you can hear a bomb whistle it will not hit you and the ones you do not hear you do not need to worry about. But one night bombs fell one block away from us and dad ran upstairs because he thought we were hit. All the people in those houses were killed.”]
There are so many children in Otherland today who have been horribly robbed of innocence and safety and security.
This was an important day for me.
I must post a tribute here to my great grandfather V.F. Valstar who in was killed as a member of the Dutch Underground. His last letter on toilet paper to his community and family testament to his resolve tested and established, “If I don’t come back alive, I am okay with the outcome. Say then, if you don’t get it, that I have gone in peace. I have a feeling that something is going to happen to me.”
And to my brother who served in the Canadian Forces with honour and integrity. He was part of the Canadian Peacekeeping Operation in Cyprus when I was married and had my babies.
Love and Respect to you Brother.
To all who have served, my deepest gratitude.