Time stood still. We found Victor James Foster and laid the flowers. We also felt the need to walk each row of Canadian dead to drive home our own sobering thoughts and feelings. It was hours later, the light starting to dim, that we were on our way again. I grew up a lot that day.
Death has a way of doing that.
I also became very aware that my Canadian national identity meant more than where my home address was. In the spring of last year my mother wanted me to accompany her to her native land of Ireland. I suggested that we take my father along and stop in Holland on the way so that he himself might see where his brother lay. A Grade 7 class of Dutch school children rode their bikes 25 km to visit the Canadian War Cemetery that day. They were having fun running through the rows and rolling on the grass.