Regardless of your beliefs, that we are entitled to freely express them is something for which we are grateful. We don’t need to look too far to know we are fortunate to have such freedom.
Over the past two years, we exercised these freedoms, gathering in the streets and parks of this country, performing hundreds of ‘Guerrilla Busks’ (spontaneous street performances) to raise money for the causes WE believe in… Canadian Feed the Children, Kanpé, Boys and Girls Club, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and many more. Many others also expressed their freedom to assemble and donated in the tens of thousands of dollars. These expressions of freedom are tolerated because we are contributing to our community, which has even formally recognized our efforts.
Today, together, we honour and recognize those who sacrificed their lives to protect that community and the families who live each day as a sacrifice to protect those freedoms. Many in our family served and sacrificed, and because we know what it means to lose someone you love, we understand the challenge of moving ahead in the face of that loss.
We want to recognize the men and women who serve and all who have sacrificed. We wrote a song, “Medic,” about this sacrifice, but today we would like to share with you a poem written by a distant relative of ours, John MacCrae.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead.Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Lest we ever forget…
National War Memorial, Ottawa - Photo: Craig Senior
