Remembrance Day is always an interesting experience in centretown Ottawa.

The obvious ceremony at the National War Memorial is one thing (although I’ve only ever been once, myself).  As part of that ceremony the snowbirds do a flyover in the Missing Man Formation.  For me, 11:11a.m. is virtually impossible to miss because of this, at least for the last 3 years.  My apartment is directly in the flyover path.  Mere seconds after they fly over the National War Memorial, the jets are flying directly over my apartment building.  You can see them, still in formation, from my balcony.  And let me tell you, they are LOUD, loud planes.

So there’s that, the ceremony and the planes.  You walk around downtown and there are men and women in uniform everywhere.  And every year, like so many others, I walk to the memorial to read the wearths, see the personal memorials and flowers citizens have left.  I mentally catalogue all the flags at half-mast, including the one on the Peace Tower.  I remember and think of my grandfather, a veteran tail-gunner from the RAF in WWII.  I leave my poppy on the Tomb of the Unknown.

It feels lucky to be able to be here for Remembrance Day, to pass the day in our nation’s capital.

Today, is also another day of Remembrance.  My stepfather passed away this spring.  Today is his birthday.  It’s ironic that I mentally mark it this year with a dream about him last night (I saw his ghost on the front porch of our house in Guelph.  I asked him how the afterlife was — apparently all is well) and a call to my mother today.  Kenny was a Jehovah’s Witness — he didn’t celebrate his birthday.  But I thought of him today, and I thought of my mother who is still grieving.

Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day 2007

Remembrance Day 2007

Remembrance Day 2007

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Canadiana, Current Events, Family, Ottawa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.