Another Remembrance Day has passed.
And as the black and white photos of my friends’ hero-relatives in military uniforms dwindle on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, I think of how much I love this country — even though I don’t have a hero of my own to share.
It’s not that my dad didn’t fight in the war or wasn’t decently brave for a 16-year-old.
It’s just that he fought for Germany.
And even if I did have a photo of him in uniform, it would be the wrong kind to post on a Remembrance Day in Canada… or on any Remembrance Day anywhere, for that matter.
Being on the wrong side of history every Nov. 11 always gets me thinking.
Having grown up hearing about the war every morning at breakfast — from my dad, who was what today is called a child soldier, and from my mother, who was a 12-year-old refugee — I get a little worked up at how uncomplicated some of my fellow Canadians seem to think war is.
But I’m a sucker for historical photos and old people who tell stories, so I look carefully at those black and white pictures my friends post and read those stories about Canadian vets and the people they liberated, and soon I’m back on the National Film Board website watching Canadian history films.
It was the same at university. Few old stock Canadians could have stayed awake for one tenth of the Canadian history courses I have under my belt.
I’m not like this because my parents shied away from their German-ness; we were German down to our liverwurst sandwiches.
But despite having once been the actual enemy Canadian soldiers fought, my parents loved this country from the day they arrived until the day they died, and they passed that love on to me and my brothers and sisters — a pack of the most patriotic Canadians you’ll ever meet.
Sometimes, when I’m unconsciously cheering on Canada during some historical account of exploration or social change or even war, I have to laugh when I remember my roots here don’t go back even one generation.
I think that’s the way it is for most kids from immigrant families. We don’t check our history at the door but that doesn’t stop us from grafting ourselves wholeheartedly into this place.
With thousands of Syrian refugees set to arrive here over the next few years, and with the memory of that vicious little strain of xenophobia that reared its ugly head during the recent federal election — not to mention the hate being spewed online this week in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris — I think that’s an important thing to remember.
--Cornelia Naylor is a reporter with the Burnaby Now, a Glacier Media sister paper of The Tri-City News.
@CorNaylor
