Lest We Forget

The Eleventh Hour conjures a great mix of thoughts on Remembrance Day. In 2009, I shared the stories of both grandmothers and their involvement with the Second World War, and I also dipped into the stories of my grandfathers and their own call to arms. I've grown up knowing about the medals, the munitions factories, the different ways in which my grandparents' lives were cast about the globe in a massive war of attrition.

And yet, it was against the backdrop of World War Two that my maternal grandparents met. Picture it: a gorgeous, young gal is goaded by the other girls she works with at the munitions factory in Halifax into attending a soldiers' dance one evening. Just so happens a certain dashing, young soldier is on leave from the front and decides to attend with some other gents from home. These crazy kids lock eyes from across the dance hall, and the rest is written in my DNA. Sounds Hollywood, right?

Oh, it gets juicier.

Both of them were engaged to other people when they met.

And, of course, both of them broke it off with their partners after that dance.

While Remembrance Day remains a solemn commemoration of the soldiers who fought, and continue to fight, in the name of our nation, it's also a time I use to reflect upon chance encounters and the odd notion of Fate in violent times.

Lest we forget.