my balcony garden has gone to bed for the season. i've packed everything up, torn out my lovely plants, piled high the bricks, and taken the pots inside. my once homey and beautiful balcony is now desolate and barren. but that's ok, everything is stored and safe in anticipation for the coming winter, and next spring i'll pull them all out and arrange them once again. the best thing about winter is starting over afterwards.
i'm going increasingly suspicious that i may be invisible.
today is remembrance day. my grandpa mcknight fought in world war one (he was born in 1897), and my other grandpa (who i think of as just my grandpa without having to classify him as "grandpa mckinnion") was a firefighter in world war two. for years i wondered why that was, why didn't he fight? they lived in england, so i didn't really get the chance to ask. after his funeral, my grandma and i sat around looking at old photos, and there were pictures of him in the "fire brigade", meanwhile there were photos of his twin brother in the airforce. i asked my grandma why he was a fireman and not a solider. she told me he was a conscientious objector. i think that's awesome, and i'm so proud of him for taking a stand for something he believed in. my grandpa lived until a week after his 90th birthday (he died on christmas eve 2001), meanwhile his identical-twin brother died of cancer in his 60s. i can't help but wonder if it was somehow related to the war. they're genetic make-up was identical, and yet one developed cancer and the other didn't. was uncle johnny exposed to radiation or something when he was fighting that my grandpa wasn't? during ww1, my grandpa mcknight at one point was stationed in england. he'd come down sick with something, so he couldn't join his platoon when they went over to france. they all died, if he'd gone with them he would have died too. i'm completed amazed by the fact that because he was sick, there have been 4 generations of mcknights. about 40 people have that to thank. wow, life is random and so detailed, filled with domino effects we can't fathom.
i have read the right books to interpret your looks.
5 comments:
My grandpa was a concientious objector, too. He had to go up north and serve in a work camp since he wouldn't fight.
My grandfather lied about his age and his physical ability to get into the air force (british) and he too get sick and could not fly one day and the rest of his squad died.
i'm partly amazed that conscientious objectors were permitted. but i think it's great!
i think my grandpa mcknight lied about his age too. what a different time it was. but i guess in a way they had no idea what they were getting into.
i think the concept of war changed hugely during the first and second world wars. technology was starting to make it possible to literally slaughter people.
my one grandpa wasn't allowed to fight, but the other one was in the air force. he worked on a bomber. apparently he was a different man when he came home, and that's why my dad's side of the family is a trainwreck.
so true.
the long term effects of war are so immeasurable. i'm sure countless people in our generation have been affected by how our parents were affected, by how THEIR parents were affected.
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