It is the day before Remembrance Day and this morning on CBC radio host Shelly Soames played a BBC radio recording of a nightingale singing in the English countryside during the 2nd World War. It was a crystal clear recording of the intricate patterns the birdsong makes done for a nature program but in the background, the steady drone of bombers taking off from a nearby RAF base could be heard, “A stark reminder of the contrast between peace and war”, as the host remarked!
I had just got up to get ready for work but stood transfixed as I listened to the complete piece, which probably lasted no more than 3 minutes. I remembered driving my sons and my brother Ken back to Winnipeg in 2003 to attend mom’s funeral, and taking the boys to visit the military graves where my father’s headstone stands. The inscription says he was a gunner in the army but when I was a boy, he told me he was in the signals corps.
He said that he and friend got drunk one night in Toronto, and when they woke up the next morning, they were in the army.
He refused to talk about the war, other than to say his nickname was “Flash”, because when the bombing started, he was the first one to flash behind a rock. Occasionally and after a few drinks he would gross us out by turning up sharp fragments of what he told us were bullets under the skin of his arm. I am not sure to this day what they were, but most likely bone or cartilage.
Like many veterans, my father seemed to be haunted by the past, and as we children grew older, he turned to drinking and was drunk more often than not. Along with drinking came the anger, and he was not a pleasant person to be around when he was angry. As children, all we could see was that he was getting angry for no reason, but we knew little of the circumstances of his struggle to survive and support a family of 8 children.
He was a gifted violinist and when we were younger he would often play at home, but when I was about 12 he pawned his violin and we never heard him play again, except once when he was admitted to Deer Lodge Hospital and astounded the whole family by playing the piano in the lounge. None of us knew he could play as we never had a piano at home and he didn’t bother to tell us.
What happened in those few years on the European front, that slowly took the peace and happiness from my father’s heart and replaced it with bitterness and deep regret? I will never know for sure, but I feel it is directly connected with what my father experienced during those war years.
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Wow--The Day after Remembrance Day I read this note from you. Yesterday I chaired an AA meeting and was asked to call for a minute of silence prior to reciting of the Serenity Prayer. This action sparked a rash of recollections by the mostly male members of the group about their fathers who were war veterans and the role that played in their growing up years. I celebrate my AA birthday on Remembrance Day and often joke that I chose it so I wouldn't forget, but yesterday I also admitted that I chose it with our Dad in mind. I can remembere a rainy day in Halifax when I cried out to Dad (wherever he was and told him I needed to stop drinking) Within the month I had made the choice to stop. When I admitted in a gestalt group, that I could not stop drinking and needed help, I remember feeling like I had betrayed Dad. Luckily I was surrounded by love and given all the help I needed.
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