Remembrance Day 2022 – A Student’s Reflections

As they have for each of the past 13 years, students from a number of schools of the Sir Wilfred Laurier School Board of Laval QC visited the National Capital and the Ottawa Branch to commemorate Remembrance Day. The students are participants in a leadership program which had its genesis in the death of school graduate Sgt Chris Karigiannis, who had been killed in 2007 while serving in Afghanistan with 3PPCLI. Not long after, the program recognized Capt Matthew Dawe, also killed in Afghanistan while serving with 3PPCLI. In addition to their annual Remembrance Day visit to Ottawa, the program maintains a close liaison and exchange with 3PPCLI. Daniel Johnson was an instigator and has been a leader of the program since its inception.

This year, about 75 staff and students, including members of the family of Chris Karigiannis, visited Beechwood National Military Cemetery, and then participated in the Ottawa Branch Remembrance Day Service, held in the beautiful Sacred Space in Beechwood. The students were very interested, interactive, and inquisitive. Serving Patricia’s and Association Members were universally very impressed.

During their return bus trip to Laval, Daniel spoke with them and questioned them about their visit. As a result, a student at Lake of Two Mountains High School wrote a note to him. It is very well-written and contains reflections on Remembrance Day and her visit to Beechwood, but also on her family’s journey to Canada and finally finding her home here in Canada. It is a powerful message.

It is reprinted with both her and Daniel’s permission. However, in view of her age and the very personal revelations it contains, I have redacted her name.

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Mr. Johnson,

Today on the bus ride home, you asked us what we learned on the trip. I was too shy to say what I had truly learned, but I wanted to share it with you anyways because I’m really, truly grateful for the opportunity you gave us today. If you feel indifferent towards it, I completely understand and you are under no obligation to keep reading. 

I was born in Mexico. I grew up and spent the first six years of my life there until my family and I moved to New York, U.S. The thing about both of these countries is that, obvious or not, they are both third world countries. One is more clear, the other one is wearing a Gucci belt. I moved from house to house, school to school, packing up every two years because every apartment, every neighborhood was temporary until we found a place where we could truly settle down. Where my parents could assure their children got the best opportunities, education, and future possible. Where we would be able to live free of discrimination.

In 2015, three years after we moved to the United States, Donald Trump emerged. As Mexicans living in New York at the time, my siblings and I were subjected to a lot of bullying. Comments were made from my classmates towards my dad when he would come pick me up from school. Other kids were telling me and my siblings it wouldn’t be long before our entire family got deported, even though there was never a moment we were living there illegally. 

Finally, in 2017, my dad got an opportunity to move my family and I to Canada for his new job. He always said he did not want us growing up in a country where if I decided to go out with my friends one night, he wasn’t sure I would be coming home. Years later, that changed to him saying that he did not want us growing up in a country where fellow ten year olds were making us feel like we didn’t belong on the land their parents called “free”. So once again, he and my mother packed us up and we moved to a tiny apartment in Canada.

I have been living here for five years now. No place I have ever lived has had that sense of family, of leadership, or opportunity. 

Today, at Beechwood cemetery, you told us to walk around alone and take a moment for ourselves and a fallen soldier. Pick a tombstone and stare at it. Walking down hundreds of rows of graves, minuscule numbers compared to the amount of people that died for our country, it clicked for me why Remembrance Day is so important. I didn’t have much stability until I was fourteen. Everything in my life so far led up to this moment. This epiphany. All of these people died for me. For my siblings. For my parents. For my classmates. My children. They sacrificed themselves so that I could come here as an immigrant and be safe. I have the entire world at my fingertips. I am free to do whatever I want, be whoever I want, and learn whatever I want. I can study anything. Pick any career. Help people. In any other place previous to this, I would have had to struggle as a woman of color, or as a second class citizen. These graves, these people, these families went through hell for us and our freedom. The fact that we have peace today is because of their sacrifice. 

At one point, I looked up from the tombstones and saw a veteran. Hunched from the weight he carried the past decades, he was on the phone with who I assumed was his wife. Into the phone, he said “Yes, honey.” His voice cracked as he stared at the grave before him. “I’ll say hi for you.” 

Later on, there was a grave with a sign on it. “I miss you dad.”

Any one of these could be my parents. Or my grandparents. It could be my children staring at my tombstone. These people, to us, are just numbers rather than names. They are reduced from their life, their passion, their mistakes, and triumphs, to nothing but a statistic, a one hundred thousandth of a single but major tragedy. It clicked for me how we have no idea how monumental Remembrance Day is. Not only to those soldiers, but the veterans of today. To you and me. I just started crying. I felt so unbelievably lucky to be in the place I am now, in one of the best countries in the world, where my opportunities are limitless. 

So sir, it is no hyperbole to say that today changed my life. My eyes opened in a way I had never experienced before. Being with veterans, asking them their stories, having them be so curious to hear mine which I consider unimportant… it made me feel like a 50 foot ant. I do not care much for politics or history, but this was one of the greatest days of my life. Thank you for this opportunity. Never in a million years would I have dreamed of getting this chance.

Once again, thank you,