Re-member

   My dad, Joseph Daniel and his brothers.
My dad  is 3rd from left, back row.

My grandmother, Agnes Lelievre had 13 children, 9 boys and 3 girls. The older boys were drafted into the Second World War and thankfully they all returned home alive and physically in once piece. My dad lost a finger…a visual reminder of the war.  But there were more serious dismemberments. Emotions and spirits were dismembered by those experiences. Families, communities and countries were dismembered by the trauma of the Second World War. In the late 1940’s there was no counseling for post traumatic stress disorder.  As he aged, my dad, vulnerable from a couple of drinks, would weep openly as he recalled his war experiences.

My mother and her sister served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, and my aunt died at the age of 24, while in service to her country. My grandparents and my mom and her siblings never totally recovered from her loss. I never knew my Aunty Rita…and yet I knew her more than others who lived. I knew her from her picture framed and hung over my grandmother’s sofa. I knew her from the stories they told me…how she used to brush my mother’s hair, how she used to sing with her sisters, how she was so full of love, how she joined the Air Force to forget a forbidden romance with her one true love who was of a different religion.



Aunty Rita's name in Book of Memories



 

At a conference I attended recently, one of the speakers said that trauma dis-members the whole person. We can also say that trauma dis-members groups, communities, countries even the world? War is traumatic for the soldiers young and old, for their families, for their communities…for the world! It is even traumatic for us at home, to “witness” the daily war occurrences brought into our living rooms almost daily.

To heal is to re-member! “The truth will set you free!”  My hope is that remembering the wrath of war, will help us to heal the pain and suffering for those who sacrificed their mental, physical and spiritual well-being as well as honour all who fought and those who lost their lives for our freedom. By remembering the horrible effects of war, by remembering how to live together in peace and love we can build a world where war only exists in our distant memories, and battles are negotiated with words, not with weapons.

In November we remember all who have fought for our freedom. In November, I remember my

mother and my father who both passed in the 11^th month but several years apart. On her death bed, the words my mother Claire said to me were, “All there is…is love Robin, All there is…is love!”  I love and miss Danny and Claire, as I remember them today and share their lessons to me about love and war.

Joseph Daniel

Claire Gabriel