Like all small towns in Canada, my hometown of Hinton has a cenotaph. My friend Travis used to live right across the street from the cenotaph, so as children we spent a lot of time playing on it, running around, climbing the stones and laughing. We didn't know what the cenotaph was or what it symbolized, so no disrespect was ever intended. But all of this play caused us to wonder just what it was we were playing on- it certainly wasn't a set of monkey bars, with its stone base and the cross on top.
Travis at least knew what it was called- a "cemotaph." And he was pretty sure there was a monster inside of it. I didn't take him too seriously- this was the same guy who claimed his dad could fill a tub all the way to the roof and no water would spill- but still, I kept a wary eye on it. We even thought we could hear the monster's heartbeat if we put our ears up to it.
As the years went by, we spent less time on the cenotaph, physically and mentally. We learned it was a Remembrance Day thing and that we should respect it and shouldn't play on it. It became something of a forgotten monument, at least to us.
There were no soldiers in my family, at least that I'm aware of. My oldest grandparent, my maternal grandfather, was a teenager in Holland during the war. He rarely talked about it, though occasionally around Remembrance Day he would write a letter to the town newspaper. One such letter appeared when I was 12, and I cut out that letter and have carried it with me ever since.
It talks about how he vividly remembers the Canadian liberation of Holland, which took place when he was 15. He mentions all the air raids he endured, and the hunger. He was arrested when he was 14 for political reasons, and the Germans took him and beat him up, leaving him in a ditch to die.
Grandpa took me to Holland when I was not quite 18. We saw Anne Frank's House, and the house where Grandpa lived during the war, hiding from the bombings. We saw war cemeteries, memorials, concentration camps, burned-out tanks left where they were as monuments, mass graves. Cenotaphs.
My Grandpa's generation are the people who remember the war, and there are less of them every year. My Grandpa passed away in 2001. He showed me things I'll never forget, and I will never forget him, but my unborn children will never have the chance.
My Grandpa closed that letter to the newspaper with these words: "Yes, I believe we have a duty to remember that freedom is a privelege, for which many died, so that future generations would benefit. We must always be ready to defend that freedom, and reflect from time to time on the price that was paid, so we can enjoy life in peace and harmony."
So I guess Travis was right, after all. There
is a monster buried in that cenotaph. We have to be careful not to awaken it. We can do that by remembering.
Remembrance Day 2003
