EDMONTON – Kitty Elliott and Lisa Eades sat together Friday, two women widowed by different wars but determined never to forget.
“It doesn’t get easier,” said Elliott, an 89-year-old who wore a silver cross at the Remembrance Day ceremony in the University of Alberta Butterdome.
She lost her husband, brother and cousin in the Second World War.
“First, I was thinking of all our boys and girls that got killed in Afghanistan because that’s right here in front of you, and the rest, memories that you hold dear. They never really fade away, but you put them aside so you can go on with your life.”
Eades, 37, along with her daughters Breanna, 10, and Niya, 7, laid a wreathe to remember Sgt. Shawn Eades, who was killed in Afghanistan Aug. 20, 2008 by a roadside bomb when he was 33.
“I’m really glad my kids are getting a little bit older to understand it a little bit better,” said Eades, who also wore a silver cross.
“How do you explain war to a four-year-old when they don’t even understand death? It took a long time for Niya to even understand that daddy had died and he’s never coming back and what that meant. So how do you understand war and how he died and why he died on top of that? It’s taken a long time for her to grasp that concept.”
They, along with thousands of other Edmontonians, listened to a bugler playing the poignant Last Post, then later applauded as hundreds of uniformed representatives marched past from Edmonton’s military and paramilitary organizations, including veterans’ groups, RCMP and city police, the Knights of Columbus, cadets, scouts and Brownies.
Since 2002, 158 Canadian Forces members – 42 based in Alberta – have died on missions in Afghanistan.
That’s six more deaths than at last year’s ceremony, the most recent being Master Cpl. Byron Greff, the first Canadian killed during the new, NATO-led training mission officially started in July.
Greff was killed Oct. 29 with 16 others during an attack by a “vehicle-borne” improvised explosive device.
He is one of more than 116,000 Canadians who have died in wars and missions in the last 100 years, said master of ceremonies J’Lyn Nye.
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