The Newfoundland Battlefield Memorial Park contains a landscape such as I’ve never seen before. 

We visited Normandy few years back.  To the cliffs of the D-Day landings.  Juno Beach.  Arromanches. The small towns like Caen where troops poured through. 

This visit provided a uniqueness, once again. Particularly this battlefield.  Forever spoiled by the ravages of war.

We walked through the trenches.  On land full of holes.  Stood amongst trees standing in these fields once filled with blood, war, death and destruction.

Vimy Ridge. 

The Memorial structure at Vimy Ridge stands tall, stretching up into the heavens.  Like the wisps of clouds leading upwards, so many souls travelled that same journey.

The towering cliffs at Dieppe. 

Lives lost.  

Many, many Canadian lives lost.

One of those caught in the 1st World War John McCrae, author of the poem In Flanders Fields. 

Also Buried. 

Near those same fields….

In the middle of nowhere, small cemetaries lay silently amongst the farmers fields.

What is noticeable to me is how all these years later, every day, people still come to pay their respect.  To remember loved ones lost. To pay tribute to those who lost their lives.

In the visitor registries people from all over the world sign their names.  Some days there are more visitors than others.  But each day, people wander through these fields, these lands, the many cemetaries.

Just as we did.   Trying to imagine what it must have been like.

I’d like to imagine another way…

forward.