Tag Archives: Remembrance Sunday

Feeling my way

15 Nov

On 16 November 2021 I wrote:

Slow but steady progress. At this stage I’m still sort of feeling my way and working out how I’ll do each element of the design.

On Sunday when I talked to Mum she hadn’t realised it was Remembrance Sunday, she said they hadn’t done anything at the home (but she’s not the most reliable witness). When I asked if she was wearing a poppy she just didn’t understand why I was asking her, she couldn’t connect poppies to Remembrance Day.

Dementia is so strange, how it robs people of their memories, of their ability to communicate, of whole parts of their lives, their personalities.

But at another level there is still so much of Mum there, and so much to love. So I try to accept her and love her for who she is each day, and remind her that she is loved, so very loved.

I can’t focus just now on who she was, what is gone already. There will be plenty time for that.

It’s odd coming back to this, three years later; and many months after I last wrote about Mum and her dementia.

So, three years on, Mum has all but disappeared. Certainly it is now almost impossible to see the woman who brought up three kids, who was Provost of our town, who campaigned tirelessly for this local community, who could draw anything, who welcomed so many people into her life, who was so interested in other people, and who could inspire a room full of people when she spoke. Mum used to lay a wreath on behalf of the town council at the War Memorial. And now….

These days, sometimes she wakes when I visit her, and she occasionally smiles at whatever I am knitting, and very, very occasionally says a few words. She may or may not know who I am, but I think she is aware that I am someone who loves her. And if not, then I tell her. I tell her over and over again. For she will forget as soon as I say a thing, that has been her life for several years now.

It was the Remembrance Day Service on Sunday, at the War Memorial which is just a few yards from our home. The day was drizzly but not too cold. So, having thought about wearing Mum’s Karakul fur coat (which she used to wear only to the Remembrance Day Parade and to funerals in the cold winter) I decided against it. I’m guessing that damp Karakul would not be the nicest thing, though perhaps our dogs would love it. I have wondered if perhaps I should dispose of the coat… but since it probably belonged to my great grandmother so no animals died for it in my lifetime, I think perhaps it would be ok to wear it, as Mum did, at funeral and Remembrance Day services when it is so cold you can’t feel your fingers.

At the end of the service on Sunday, when the wreaths had all been laid, we’d had Flowers of the Forest on the bagpipes, and the Last Post on the trumpet; the colours had been raised again, the Minister spoke, ending with ‘WE WILL REMEMBER THEM’. At that precise moment we all heard a ‘whup whup whup’ noise above us, coming up from the High Street. It was one of the swans, giving us a perfectly timed fly past, Gatehouse-style.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 

We will remember them.

***

Thank you for reading this.

Mostly I blog about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, so if that might be your thing, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

Do get in touch if you have any questions or comments – I love to hear from you my lovely readers.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Memories, remembering, remembrance

9 Nov
The War Memorial
Gatehouse of Fleet

It is nearly 11am, on Remembrance Sunday, a time for reflection.

In my childhood I took part in the Remembrance parade at Gatehouse, the small town where I was brought up. Most of the town took part in some way – I consider standing watching this parade as participating. Some years we had bright shiny sun and a blue sky, other years were less kind, and there were years of grey clouds, of smirry rain and one or two of proper big rain. But still the town turned out to remember. Mum nearly always wore her Astrakhan coat. I never really knew what an Astrakhan coat was, except that it was an inherited, enormously heavy black fur, with a curly coat, like a big black lamb. We all wrapped up warm. We were all freezing cold by lunchtime.

We would march up the town, past the clock tower to the War Memorial, a simple granite cross. The traffic through the town was stopped, and this, perhaps more than anything was what first told me that this was important. Mum told me about her Uncle Bobby who had died in the war, but when I was young I don’t think I really understood. I felt I should think of real people during that 2 minute silence, but I didn’t feel emotionally connected to anyone who had died in a war. I didn’t actually know any of them. I am lucky in that I still have no direct connection to anyone who has died in any war. But I do feel a real connection with this act of remembrance. I feel it is an honour and a duty for me to recognise it in some way each year.

When I first lived in London in the early 1980s I attended the ceremony at the Cenotaph each year, probably for about 8 – 10 years. It felt like the right thing to do, to show my respect, my thanks for those who had given their lives so that we could live in freedom. I thank them. And thank them again. I suspect that attending the Cenotaph is a different experience these days; there will be more security, and just more people there. The crowds were much smaller in the 80s and early 90s, despite the recent war in the Falklands. Most years, I had a direct line of sight to the Queen, who was only 30 or 40 feet away from me.

Since then I have mostly listened to it on Radio 4, or watched the BBC coverage of the ceremony. I don’t remember in what year it was that a silent tear first fell down my cheek, but now it never fails. So, here I sit considering those familiar words:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them

In my mind I feel the weight of the flag, as I lowered it, that one year. The determination not to let it wobble as it lowered, or as I raised it again. It may only have been the Girl Guide flag, but it mattered. It still does.

Memories are important.

Remembering matters.

Remembrance shows we care.

St Paul’s Cathedral
London
The Garden of Remembrance
Edinburgh

Tags: ,