It's our loss too...
I'm going to post about the convention later but right now, I want to write about something that happened after I left Toronto.
Just after Port Hope, driving east along the 401 I started seeing people waiting on the overpasses. Sometimes only two or three people, sometimes people lining the rail two or three deep. There were at least four overpasses where fire trucks and other rescue vehicles were parked, lights flashing. On one overpass, there were firemen lined up in uniform across the tops of two trucks. There were flags.
It was raining.
Everyone stood facing east, watching the westbound traffic. Facing CFB Trenton.
I knew what was going on only because our local paper had run a picture and an article about the people on the overpasses back when it first started happening. Back when they started gathering to acknowledge the hearses driving along the highway carrying the Canadian military dead lost in Afghanistan.
As far as I know, no one organized the vigils over the highway. They began, as things do, with one or two and grew and seem likely to keep growing.
By the time I passed Brighton, and the firemen waiting in the rain, I was weeping and figured I'd better pull over before I crashed the car. Truth be told, I wasn't so much weeping for the approaching dead as I was weeping in reaction to the public response.
I made it to the next rest stop. There were two groups of people standing on the grass between the parking lot and the highway. Waiting. I joined the closer group - two women on their way home from a wedding in Niagara Falls. We talked; about how many people seemed oblivious to what was happening, about how many didn't, about the younger woman's boyfriend currently working as fireman at the big US airbase in Iraq and how she tries not to be frightened for him but it's hard.
Then we saw the lights of the police escort approaching and we, like the other, larger group, turned our attention toward the highway.
Six hearses. A hearse is such a distinct vehicle that six, one after the other, makes an impact that squeezes your heart.
Six.
Captain Jefferson Francis, 37, a member of the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery at Shilo, Man.; Master Corporal Colin Bason, 28, a reservist from the Royal Westminster Regiment, in New Westminster, B.C.; and Captain Matthew Dawe, 27, Corporal Jordan Anderson, 25, Corporal Cole Bartsch, 23, and Private Lane Watkins, 20, all members of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton.
Behind the hearses, the long, black cars carrying the grieving families.
Right now, I doubt they're even aware of how many people had gathered to acknowledge their loss but, later, I hope it helps a little that we've come to realize it's our loss too.
We stood quietly and watched them pass, then we wished each other a safe drive home, we got back into our cars, and we continued our journey.
All the way to Toronto, on every overpass, men and women were doing the same thing - wiping their eyes, getting slowly back into their cars, continuing their journeys.
Down on the highway, the bodies of six Canadian soldiers headed home...