How fortunate we are

Yesterday I took my five year old son to a Remembrance Day service at Vancouver's Victory Square. Thousands crowded around the cenotaph. Poems were read, songs sung, and a lone bugler silenced the mass with the stirring notes of The Last Post.

But the most poignant moment for me came when the first shot was fired from a large field gun a few blocks away on the harbour. The booming sound startled my son. "Daddy, what was that?" he asked with alarm, pulling himself close to me.

In that instant I imagined a young boy or girl holed up in the security of their home in London or Dresden some 70 years ago asking that same question, as bombs were exploding around them. I imagined the parents masking the worry on their faces, and telling their children that everything would be okay. Then I realized that even today, somewhere in the world, a child was probably clutching their mother or father in fear and asking what that unsettling sound was. A gun, perhaps. Or maybe a bomb.

With the sound of the 21-gun salute echoing throughout the city, my son and I walked to our car and drove away. How fortunate we are.