Lest we forget

Today is Remembrance Day. It's a special, somber day for me. It always has been. So of course there was a service in the cards. Today's service, however, was special. Just down the road, in Old Weston, is a church whose cemetery houses 4 Canadians killed when their plane crashed during WWII. The graves have been here, and have been honoured and remembered, since 1944. The plane, however, was just excavated last year, finally allowing a full picture of their last moments to be reconstructed. So today we, along with the entire Canadian community, attended a Remembrance Day service alongside those graves, led by a minister who was a boy in the area during the war and who remembers the day the four men were killed. It was a beautiful day. It was one of the most low key services I can remember. No pomp. Last post was played on someone's iphone. There were no dignitaries. Just a quiet ceremony beside the graves with a single wreath laid followed by mass in the small parish church. It was, without a doubt, the most touching Remembrance Day ceremony I have every attended.