Asking For More Than We Can Give?

My grandfather, Alphonse Piché whom we lovingly called Pépère was a very quiet man.  He often would sit silently with his fingers interlocked, twiddling his thumbs while everyone else in the room engaged in conversation.  As a child, I did not know why Pépère did not engage in small talk or socialize when the family was around and it wasn’t until I got older that I finally understood.

When World War II started in 1939, he was 36 years old, living in the mainly French town of Lafleche, Saskatchewan with his wife (my Mémère, grandmother) Delia Piché and 7 children.  He was the only ‘breadwinner’ in the house so he did not sign up to fight in the war as he had to support his growing family.  In 1944 Canada introduced conscription and over 60,000 men were drafted, including my grandfather, so he had to leave his wife and now 8 children behind to defend our country along with thousands of other Canadians.

From stories passed down through my family, the consensus is that when Pépère was drafted he was already experiencing hearing loss however it was either unnoticed by military doctors or it was ignored as they needed troops.  Upon returning from the war he had lost much of his hearing and had to rely on hearing aids for the remainder of his life and that accounted for some of his quiet behaviour.

However, it was not only his hearing that caused him to be a silent man.  He had seen or experienced something in the war that he never spoke to anyone about which caused him to retreat into himself.  Friends of the family described him to be a very outgoing man with a great sense of humor before going overseas, yet when he returned he became sullen and quiet.  Men in the 1940’s did not talk about their ‘feelings’ with their spouses and speaking with a therapist was unheard of!  So my grandfather suffered in silence with the trauma of war on his mind until he passed in 1990.

Today mental health is better understood and understanding of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) has come to light and had this knowledge been available to our veterans in the past, many people would not have had to feel they needed to suffer alone.

The average person cannot even begin to imagine the horrors our veterans have seen and lived through.  Losing friends in battle who fought by your side; having to kill a man or woman and see the life drain from their eyes because they are considered the enemy; being injured on the field causing permanent disabilities. These are only a few of the many horrendous sites that many of our veterans see every time they close their eyes.

They sacrifice everything, even their own sanity, so we at home can enjoy our freedoms and it will take more than 2 minutes of silence on Remembrance Day to honor how much they have given for us all.

They are not asking for ‘more than we can give’…They deserve all that we can give…and more!



Written by:  Bobbi - Lynne McGarry