Remembering

It’s early evening, and around here most folks hit the pillow early. The dark November sky and cold rain hitting beyond the window next to me adds weight to the poignancy of the art that lines the walls of this place. There are paintings of warships, of air bombers, of troops. The quiet culture of the veterans’ wing of the Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre in Ottawa has a melancholy to it.

William Hall
‘Smokey’ Smith
Thomas Rickets…

Polite and cheery, the personal care workers and nursing staff make their rounds, one room at a time. Notes are made on a computer, medication is distributed, the glow of television screens spills from some of the rooms.

Seven Canadians were awarded the highest medal of honour, the Victoria Cross, on one single day—September 2, 1918—for actions they performed along the 30-kilometre long Drocourt-Quéant Line near Arras, France:

Bellenden Hutcheson
Arthur George Knight
William Henry Metcalfe…

Beside each room’s door are memory boxes, built-in display cabinets where tokens, medals, family photos and images of military personnel are at rest. It’s hard to relate to the photos of vibrant young men and women, decked out in military dress, in these images. They are the same faces I see in the hallways when I visit my father, who became a resident here back in June.

Claude Nunney
Cyrus Wesley Peck
Walter Leigh Rayfield
John Francis Young… The photos in the cabinets show high ranking army, navy and air force military members mixed with the ranks of the everyday soldier. Time and story are sculpted into aged expression. Here, like in similar facilities for veterans across Canada, age holds no rank, the field is equal. Every resident of the healthcare centre is vulnerable and dependent on enhanced care.

With a senior population better equipped to age at home, the common age of an individual to enter long-term care is 90. More frail, the average stay is four months. A decade ago, the norm was 22 months.

Ian Bazalgette
Edward Bellew
Philip Bent
William Bishop…

But it’s not borrowed time, as many residents will tell you. The facility is a village where art and therapy programs are extensive. Where, like any village, there are gardens, a library, hair care, a chapel, dental and hearing offices, banking services and a gift shop. I often have to ask around to track down the whereabouts of my centenarian-scientist dad when I visit, as he is likely tied in with exercise class or one of many music performances ranging in taste from classical to ragtime.

Rowland Bourke
Alexander Brereton
Jean Brillant
Harry Brown…

There are an estimated 2,500 veterans in long-term care, from Camp Hill Veterans’ Building in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which started as a hospital in 1757, to the George Derby Centre in Burnaby, B.C.

The last of the WWI veterans are gone. Now, there are 91,400 WWII and 9,900 Korean war veterans, mostly in their 90s. And of our recent wars? With an average age of 55, there are 594,300 modern veterans.

Stand by the lake of our small island and listen. There you hear the names, the voices of every man and woman who have perished so that we may live. Listen as each wave rolls in. Lest we forget…

Hugh Cairns
Frederick Campbell
Leo Clarke
William Clark-Kennedy
Hampden Cockburn
Robert Combe
Frederick Coppins
Aubrey Cosens
John Croak
Robert Cruickshank
David Currie
Edmund De Wind…