The last time that all five of us were together in one place was Christmas 1973 in North Bay, Ontario.

The thing about being raised in a military family was that it was within me to BE Canadian…I didn’t grow up with a sense of having a home town, but rather, considered our beautiful nation my home.  When I drove the Trans Canada highway recently, each new province held its memories of camp fire singing, of water gazing, of miles of “I Spy” and warnings from the front seat to behave.  I was the person in my group of friends who had to look up my own telephone number in the phone book. My brothers, sister and I fall into a group of Canadians aptly referred to as Military BRATS (Borne, Raised And Transferred Somewhere). As a result of five of us having similar, but different, experiences of military life, we settled across the nation, raised our families and missed one or the other at every single event since those Christmas festivities of 1973, forty years of together-apart and apart-together.

After 40 years, we stood together, a tribute to our parents,late…but at last.