If you’ve followed my writing for any length of time, you know I go where the truth and the moment lead. Sometimes that means celebration. Sometimes that means politics. Sometimes it means sitting with the weight of memory. Over the next few days, as we approach Remembrance Day, I’ll be sharing a few reflections about service, sacrifice, and the country we are responsible for. I won’t apologize for that. It’s my duty.
Many of us carry stories of war in our family lines, stories that live quietly in the background until something pulls them forward. My family’s story is one of those. My grandfather, Ivan McClure, developed tuberculosis after being gassed in the trenches at Ypres during the First World War. The chlorine gas ravaged his lungs and, eventually, the rest of his life. He spent his remaining years in a Tuberculosis sanatorium, like so many who returned with slow-dying injuries.
But there is something I know now that my father never did. The military records and medical reports from the First World War were not released until after Dad had passed. When I finally saw them myself, one detail struck me so hard I had to sit with it for a while. My grandfather’s feet had begun to rot from the sheer amount of time he had stood in freezing trench water. Not figuratively. Not poetically. His flesh decayed while he was still standing in uniform.
That is two generations behind me. Not distant history. Not ancient trauma. My family. Our country. Our home.
We are not as far from these stories as some would like to believe. And yet, somehow, in all our noise and distraction, we seem to be forgetting.
When Remembrance Day comes, I think of my grandfather fighting to breathe. And I think of his son, my father, Don McClure, heading into the Second World War as a boy who had already seen what war does to a man’s body.
This passage, from my father’s memoir One Rung At A Time, will always remain exactly as he wrote it. His voice deserves to remain untouched: “On the train ride home from Montreal I got permission from my Commanding Officer to leave the train and take a taxi to the hospital to see Dad. He had no inkling that I was going to be there and I know that it was a glimpse of sunshine for him on an otherwise cloudy day. I only stayed for a half hour as it had taken time to get to the hospital and it would take an equal amount of time to get back to the train. After I kissed Dad good-bye, I turned my back on him and walked away. I have often wished I had turned and waved but the scene was getting too emotional for me to handle, compounded by a foreboding that this was a final farewell.”He was right. It was.
All of this, this history, this bloodline of service, has taken on a sharper meaning now that my youngest child serves in the Canadian Armed Forces. When my father wrote his memoir, that wasn’t yet part of our story. I think of how proud he would be. And I also think of how afraid he would be, knowing what war takes and how peace must be guarded.
Those who have served, and those who love someone who does, understand something that isn’t captured in parades or ceremonies. Service isn’t abstract. It is lived in the body. It is separation, sacrifice, risk, and readiness. It is a love of country that is not loud, but carried. And I will say this plainly: As I watch what is happening south of our border, the erosion of democratic loyalty in favour of personal allegiance to a single man, my heart breaks and my blood boils. The oath of service is meant to be to one’s country, not to a king of convenience. We have seen what happens when citizens are asked to serve a person instead of a nation.
There is a myth we hear sometimes, that the United States “saved the world” in both world wars. But I have stood with my family’s records in my hands, and I know better. Canada fought. Canada bled. Canada lost sons and fathers and brothers who never came home, and those who did often came home to suffering, sickness, and silence.
We are a small country, yes. But small does not mean insignificant. We must remain strong. With our allies. With our democracy. With our conscience. We cannot afford to forget who we are.
On Remembrance Day, I wear my poppy for all who served.
For all who serve now. For all who will stand when it is their turn.
We remember so we do not repeat. We honour so we do not diminish. We love this country, so we protect it. Lest we forget.
Nancy's Notes 