I like exploring the world. Even if I go somewhere I've been to before, I always find something new.
Thus, life recently took me to Calgary. And while I go there pretty often, I don't think I've ever been there during this time of the year.
While the city was still all about Halloween, I already could see some preparations for Remembrance Day. One of them was the Field of Crosses (a few of them were not really crosses but Magen Davids), installed in memory of over 3,500 southern Albertan soldiers who served and lost their lives fighting for Canada in different wars in the 20th century.
The memorial has been put up along Memorial Drive every year in November for over 10 years already, but it was the first time I saw it. Each piece had a name, age, rank and date of death on it. As details and names are found, more crosses are added to the field, which is open to the public in November up until Remembrance Day.
This impressive monument (which by the way was started by a private person) made me think of the lives each cross represents and also about how much our life values have changed since the beginning of the 1900s.
I don't know if it actually was like that, but when I read or hear about what was going on around the world during the last 100 some years, often it seems that back then death was pretty routine, it was just a normal part of living and losing thousands and millions of people to disease or war was something acceptable.
A friend recently phoned and said he was shocked to learn how many Russian (meaning Soviet) people died during the Second World War. Numbers vary, but just to give you an understanding the country lost up to 11 million soldiers and up to 17 million non-combatants to the Great Patriotic War from 1941-1945. Just to compare, at that time the population of Canada was about 11 million people. But these days, I rarely think of the horrors of those times.
That Field of Crosses in Calgary brought me back to the meaning of Remembrance Day, which unfortunately so often now just turns into November long in my consciousness.
Looking at the crosses, I was thinking about people they commemorate, who, if they survived, probably would have a kid or five, who in their turn would have families of their own. And if still alive these deceased soldiers could have been great grandfathers or even great great grandfathers by now. But all these lifelines were broken. So were millions and millions all over the world.
When those soldiers were dying, probably many of them were buried in collective graves. It was later when historians or grateful descendants found some names and details about them. How many of them ended up being food for powder serving greater states or global goals?
The world and our values have changed since then. Maybe not in every corner, but in the western world they did. Now we fight for every life. We try to ensure we live longer, and safety took a steroid shape.
We said never again on many occasions, and we try to stick to these promises. In the world that we live in today, every life matters (I don't mean it to resonate with the movement, just read it literally). Back 75 years ago, states would sacrifice thousands in an attempt to save millions. Now, not one life can be sacrificed unless a person chooses to.
Even though one day we all will die and it's just part of life, we do our best to stay in this world as long as we can. But we can, because others died for us in the craziness of the 20th century. And every cross on that field and millions of crosses and collective graves in different countries are powerful reminders.
Candles have been used as symbols of life for many years. On Remembrance Day candles will be lit in front of every cross at Calgary's Field of Crosses, but to symbolize the real scale of loss each candle should be infinitely reflected in a labyrinth of mirrors, representing not only lives that were lost, but also millions of lives that never happened.
What I was trying to say is that the horror of the 20th century’s wars could only happen when it did, when the value of humans' lives was different. But only now can we fully understand what happened and the price that was paid. It took us millions of lost worlds to start treasuring life more.
And all we can do to commemorate the lesson ancestors taught us is to do our best to remember them and remember the price they paid.
