remembrance day 11.11.12
what a special day nov. 11th is. i felt beyond grateful to not only honour my papa by going to the cenotaph to pay my respects to the veterans and those who are in the service now, but I also got to spend the rest of the day with him. he’s 90, cute as a button & the bravest man I know.
seeing him wheel his walker around the senior home, while proudly wearing his metals just about made my heart melt. It was that very moment that i felt a sense of urgency in what it is that I’m doing here: documenting the stories of my family. and by doing this, it is also honouring the stories of a generation that is aging quickly.
he told us some of his stories we’ve been lucky enough to hear before. the day he was enlisted to go abroad, the stories from the days of training, tales from the tanks & stories of meeting the love of his life. he told us what it was like finding out the war was over, what it was like guarding a distillery and about the stories of all the loopholes he had to jump through to get married to grama.
this day was also very special for me this year because i told him all about my plan. my plan to go to england, retrace the steps grama took and do the things she did in her letters to see what comes up for me. i told him how I plan to find the place she wrote the letters from and eventually see if I can somehow take the queen mary 2 home in the summer…just like she did. we looked through journals & scrapbooks that my papa had no idea my grama even made. we found so many cool things that my papa was so pleased to see. old telegraphs stating her departure date, their wedding bar bill (3 pounds 17), her queen mary boarding information and a ration card.
he thought it was pretty cool what I was up to. he said my grama would have been thrilled. i could see her being overjoyed with the whole idea, myself. she was all about adventure, living in the moment & making things fun. enjoying life to its fullest while laughing & being silly along the way.
i will do just that. i will honour both of them every step of the way. it will be like gratitude footsteps. every step I take, i will be thanking them.
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who is someone in your family that you are grateful for? how do you honour them?
life's letter 
Beautiful post Car!
Carly, this blog brings back some great memories. Back in the day when your mom and dad where dating we spent a lot of time over at your grandparents. Nick would talk about his WWII days around this time of year. Famous quote. I hope I got it right. “Our gunner couldn’t hit a cow in the a## with a shovel full of rice”. All the best in your journey. And your gram…..oh my gosh she was a hoot. Take care.
Gratitude footsteps….what an amazing and beautiful concept.