Home for Remembrance Day!

Sometimes our eyes speak louder than our mouths - the ultimate body language. As I stared into two soft eyes in a picture frame, the voice of a young soldier spoke loud enough that I finally paid attention, "Please, it is time - I want to go home."

While visiting an antique shop, years ago, I had purchased a photograph of a very young WWII soldier, beautifully preserved in a handsome oval frame, protected by convex glass. Not paying so much attention to the picture as to the frame, which I thought I might re-purpose to enhance one of my own oil paintings, I brought it home - and there it stood at the back of a shelf, with a growing assortment of other picture frames.

It came with us as we moved from our farm in Osgoode to our new home in Prescott six years ago; still just another lovely potential picture border, until a couple of weeks ago. That's when I decided to stop being so stubbornly selfish, and to start purging some of the 'treasures' that I had squirreled away in my art closet. I was thinking of passing it along to a local charity sale with some of the other frames, until my husband thankfully intervened and pulled it out of my donation pile.
There I stood once again, staring into brave eyes that were patiently waiting; I carefully removed the picture from the oval, and there on the back was the name of the soldier: Mr. Alf Root, Lansdowne, Ont. with what I assumed was his war tag number written at the top: 2310. With his picture now back in the frame, the hunt is on - I find myself offering to be the legs for this man: I'm walking about - on my computer, trying to find someone who can help identify his family.

So many times, I have gone on extended nostalgic journeys back in time whenever I pull out our own family pictures and albums and hear again our loved ones voices. I believe that those who have touched our hearts and souls throughout our lives continue to communicate with us, that our spirits go on forever, fellow travellers on our homeward journey.

Therefore, I will persevere with my walking fingers, and as those eyes keep entreating me, perhaps I can help return this one soldier home, to the arms of one of his own family members for Remembrance Day.