Lest We Forget – 2010; and Lest I forget 1960-2010

Two events in the last little while – one ephemerally significant and one eternally so.

A Birthday

I woke on the 19th and had aged one mere day and an apparent huge milestone.

50

Meh – didn't feel any older, any different, any poorer or richer, certainly not any more enlightened as a human being. Clearly I am missing something!

Then, I thought of some people I'd known, had been friends with, had shared with. People who hadn't turned 50, and never would, and others who had far exceeded that, but were no longer.

So now I feel a little richer, a little luckier, a little more enlightened...

ANZAC Day - 25th April 2010

ANZAC Day once again. And once again I march in memory of my grandfather Jim Seiver, who fought in World War 2 as a member of the 2/11 A.I.F Battalion in Crete, and who passed away Feb 2007.

Mum and I picked up Des, one of Jim's great friends through many years, and assembled with the remaining diggers from the 2/11th. It is always nice to see them as they mingle with each other for the pre-march chat, sharing a joke and a handshake. They are all in their late eighties/early nineties now, and sometimes don't see each other except for this time now.

It is a very whimsical and melancholy time in some ways – to see their joy with each other, but also to be reminded of their fragility fills me with both happiness and circumspection. It reminds me that there will come a day when there will be no-one from the 2/11 here to march, and the last people other than my immediate family who knew and called my grandfather friend will be no longer.

I don't like to reflect on it, but it's hard not to. Still, I think of these remaining men, and of my grandfather and friends passed, and I am grateful that I knew them and knew of them. My 50 years thus are the better for them.

As in previous years, the weather was perfect – cool, blue skies and little wind. The crowds were similarly wonderful – numbers seem to swell and the sense is genuine: there is little evidence of the creeping faux-patriotism evident at some other days of national celebration.

So, again for 2010...

LEST WE FORGET.

Ride safe!