A poignant evening

Last evening was poignant, yes, - but heart warming.

Dinner with family and then on to receive the Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal awarded post humously to Charles for the enormous amount of volunteer work he did in the comunity, and provincially, in the fields of Agriculture and Education and with the Royal Canadian Legion.

Only one of 60,000 awarded, but we were proud and felt it was well deserved!!

We all dressed appropriately, hoping to set an example for the Justin Beiber's of the world who are terribly nonchalant about the whole thing and appear at the presentation in baggy overalls with cap worn backwards!!!  I wore Charles' silver wings on my lapel and carried his cane.

In the excitement the pictures went all blurry, but here is one for the record.

I think that Charles, along with many other veterans, felt a special affinity with the Princess Elizabeth who drove an ambulance while they fought the war in different theatres, - Charles as a Lancaster Pilot.

It is all such a long time ago now, but while he was in the grip of that dreadful and fatal  post-op delirium and it was hard to know what paths he was treading in his mind, Charles sat up in bed and said,  loudly and clearly,  "God Save the Queen", a last thought for a comrade in arms who has a special place in the lives of veterans of the Second World War. 

Was he there last night in spirit?  I am inclined to make that great leap of faith that allows me to believe that the soul has a life of its own;  a mystery that will only be made clear when we make that journey that requires us to pack nothing, only go as we are to where we are sent, to paraphrase Mary Oliver in the Epilogue to her book, 'Thirst' (which sits nearby and brings me comfort when I am sad.)

Enough musing, - I must go and make some dinner buns.....