today we remember.

taken by me at their 50th wedding anniversary dinner.

Today is a day I like to sit and reflect about my grandparents. They were honestly the best people in the world and I am so sad that they never knew my children or husband. I know that my Grandma really wanted to be a great-grandma and I am a little disappointed that that never happened happened for her. We were very close (us girls being the only grand-kids) and I am saddened that she and my grandpa are not still here to enjoy all of this with us.

The reason I am talking about them is that they were both in the Royal Canadian Air Force and were very proud of the fact. My grandmother worked at a headquarters in Toronto (or York) and my grandfather was a radar technician stationed in India. Till the end of their lives they were involved in organizations that had ties to the Air Force in one way or another.

My grandfather passed away 8 years ago and was battling Alzheimer's at the end of his life. With this disease you regress to times in your life and I remember one day he looked at me and asked me "So what do they give you to drink during this war?" He of course was talking about WW2 and we describing to me the conditions that he lived under while in India. It was very interesting story/facts and he told it with such conviction that I believed I was talking to a 20 something young man who had just come back from war. That is a conversation and memory that I will keep with me forever.

Also something my mother always tells me is a story about how my grandpa was going on a mission in an aircraft and the plane was over the weight limit. He was pulled off at the last moment and as the aircraft soared into the air it was shot down and destroyed and everyone on board was killed. My grandfather stood there on the tarmac and watched it all. It was that day he realized his family line was supposed to continue and it wasn't his time yet.

We all feel blessed to be part of their family tree. Lest we forget. xoxo.