I had to give myself time to find a place to write this from. How do I talk about it? I feel, not more solemn, but more joyous, and yet whenever I am asked "How was your trip?", my mind races, I become tangled and fall weeping before the memories. How do I describe a trip like that? Visually magnificent and emotionally exhausting? That sounds too negative. Of course, the windmills and tulips were at moments spectacular, as were the buildings in old cities like Nijmegen, but the reason I have avoided my computer these past two weeks is because of the people. The site of cemeteries full of men not much older than myself, and often younger, could not compare to the people we encountered, both Dutch and Canadian. Though Holland isn't exactly the sunniest of countries, I wore sunglasses most days because the tears came to fast to be brushed away. I stood by, crying behind my sunglasses, as my sister took pictures of a smiling man visiting the grave of the man who sacrificed himself so that he could live. So, I cried smiling when strangers approached my grandfather in the middle of the street, thanking him as I have only seen people thanked in the movies. A man in his 50s asked my grandfather to sign his book on the war, asking him for his autograph, as though he were a movie star. I've never had cause to call anyone a hero, but these people saw my grandfather as a hero for things he did when he was younger than me. A man on the street seemed to have this strange envy when he found out that I was the grand-child of a veteren, as though that meant something to him. How do I convey to you, my friends, the magnitude of these experiences? Of course, Amsterdam was...well, Amsterdam, but I found my heart in Appeldorn where 300 000 Dutch people watched 1500 Canadian veteran parade, where the crowd didn't dwindle though the rained tried hard to drive them away, where it was understood that the crowds would stop the jeeps and tanks filled with veterens when they were so moved because they were so moved. I found my heart in Appeldorn where the crowds sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" to my Grandfather, my Papa, the man I've never understood. For all that I don't understand, for all the ways we differ, there was this moment where I understood who he was and how he fit and how much I love him.

As I write this, I weep. It isn't good enough. I haven't found that place to tell you, my loves, all that I have felt and feel. I haven't found that place when the joyous is solemn and the solemn is joyous. Perhaps that place was Holland, and you just had to be there. I was there; I will remember.