Remembrance

It's Remembrance Sunday today. For as long as I can remember I watched the Remembrance Service on TV with my Mum. I remember her always shedding tears when I was too young to know why it was sad. As I got a bit older and we learnt about the wars at school I understood why it was upsetting to watch and why we had this day. My Grandma told me about people in our family who have served in the two World Wars, which made it more real to me.

After my Mum's Mum died twelve years ago, when I was 19, we found an old biscuit tin with all sorts of documents and photographs in. My Mum and her sister were already crying as they looked through it but both of them had to leave the room after reading one slip of paper. Mum showed it to me afterwards and it was the telegram that my Nan had received about her first husband, who had served in World War 2. It said 'Missing Presumed Dead' on it. I sobbed when I saw it and I get choked up now when I think of it. My Nan had a young daughter when she received that news and I cannot even imagine how devastated she must have been.

Every year since then when I've watched the Remembrance Service with my Mum I've cried because I think of my Nan and her husband. He was never found but it is believed he had been in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. I also know of people who have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq in more recent years.

My Mum died last year and so now I watch the Remembrance Service on my own. And I cry. I cry for all the soldiers who have died; for the soldiers, and their families, I have known who have died; and mostly for my Nan.

And I cry for my Mum because I just really, really miss her.