Rememberance Day

Ninety years ago to the day, WW1 ended, after years of fighting and millions of deaths. I can't help but be moved when I remember my grandfather, Edgar, who was on the western front and survived more than 1000 days of army service overseas. I was five when he died.

His only daughter, our mum Elvie, turned eighty yesterday. She talks of her dad with great fondness. He used to take her camping and fishing when she was a girl, up around Warburton, which was in the bush in the thirties. When the '39 bushfires came, he left Elvie with friends and went off to help fight the fires. It was four days till Elvie next saw him, without a word of his well being in that time.

Edgar died of a heart attack on his last day of work in the late fifties. A grocer, he closed his shop for the last time, rang his wife Annie saying, "Put the kettle on, I'm on my way." His Bedford truck crashed through a fence after his last delivery. He was dead at the wheel.

In 1990 I gave up smoking. I nearly went mad. In the depths of my desperation, at my lowest, I said to myself, "I'm doing this for you too,'Poppa'." He'd smoked since the war. Nanna Wilson, who hated his smoking, told me he'd tried to give up so many times but couldn't.

As I think of history, I feel a softness for people. Everyone has endured God knows what. People should look after other people. Help each other. I detest violence, exploitation, and injustice. John Donne (1572-1631) wrote-

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

The election of a coloured man to the presidency of the United States fuels hope for me. Hope that I share with friends. Perhaps, ninety years after WW1, nations can finally unite to overcome the huge 'global' challenges.