We Remember
Today is Remembrance Day. All of my Grandfathers fought in WWII. Grandpa Sidney and Grandpa Joe made it back, Grandpa Jack (pictured above) didn't. He was shot down over France in late 1944 when he filled in for a sick pal on a bombing raid. He was weeks away from Christmas leave that he was planning to take with my Grandmother and my infant father in Montreal.
Grandpa Joe (technically my step-grandfather, but he was always just 'Grandpa' to me) was a pilot and group commander in RCAF. After the war, he went back to his old neighborhood in Toronto (where I now live) and ran into my widowed Grandmother who had moved back in with her family after Jack's death. It turns out that Grandpa Joe always had a crush on Grandma as a teenager but never stepped up. He began courting her and soon they married, and he raised Dad as his own son. They had 3 more children together and were married for 52 years. He was a Jimmy Stewart-type man with strong moral ideals and a penchant for really bad puns. And he was completely addicted to jelly beans. Grandma said that he wasn't comfortable around small children but you'd never know it when you saw him with his grandchildren. I remember him as a cuddler.
Grandpa Sidney (my mother's father) fought but never talked about it, which was typical of his personality. He did his duty and came home to his wife and 3 children. He didn't keep any mementos or war time photos; he just went on. He was a quiet, gentle man and it is difficult for me to imagine him at war.
Today I remember all three of them and how they not only helped others, but how they helped form their children and by extension, me. Thank you, gentlemen. May you rest in peaceful green fields.