Mothers Are The Real Victims Of Any War

 

 

By John F. Tomczak

 

I have just returned from Saskatoon after spending some time with my sister who is very ill. Being a courageous woman she asked me to help her settle her estate, give my thoughts about who should get this or that and what to do with the hundreds of photos and other mementos of our family life.

 

We found the log book of our brother, Mickey, who was a pilot of a Halifax Bomber in a Pathfinder Squadron shot down over Holland on his seventeenth mission, a photo of our brother Lloyd blinded just two weeks before the war ended, quite a few pictures of Bob, the baby of the family who was part of the occupation of Germany at the end of the war. 

 

Then we talked about the courage of our Mother. She saw her four sons off to the war.  She never saw Mickey again. When Lloyd came home he was changed forever. Bob went back to University and I, having spent the war playing in the Naden band, here and in Scotland, settled down in Victoria.

 

November the 11th is a sad and glad day for me. I am glad that Canada provided the world with such a remarkable war effort. I remember a schoolmate, Bud Ross, who was last seen still firing his six-pounder from the stern of the freighter, Jervis Bay. Most of all I think of the Mothers who have lost sons and daughters in wars. I can’t even begin to understand what it is to lose a child. 

 

Where did my Mother find the strength to face each and every day with the memories of that war? How was she able to visit Holland stand before the grave of her son?

 

There are thousands and thousands of Mothers in Canada who can give us a lesson in courage.  When the bands are playing, the flags are flying, while the wreaths are being placed and the Last Post is heard throughout our Canada, let us remember the Mothers.