Keeping promises

Tomorrow morning I will be getting up very early. Not just very early for a Sunday (which would be about 8:30 or 9) No, I am planning on getting up at just after 5!!! In my world, this is actually night and getting up at this time is like going for a poo in someone's house that you have only just met - it's just not done. Any how because I am such a good mother, my complete horror at getting up at such an ungodly hour is outweighed by a promise I made to Bennett many years back, and it has been a promise that I have been putting off for too long - to take him to the dawn service.
I always take Bennett down to the cenotaph because he likes to put his poppy on the tomb of the unknown soldier and write in the visitors book about how his great grandfather went to war. This year I showed him the information you can find online about my great uncles who died in the war, he now wants to put two poppies on the tomb for them. I remember when I was a young teenager and I viewed everything passionately, but very black and white. When I saw the world this way I thought it was ridiculous that we had ANZAC day because war was pointless, stupid and not something we should celebrate (which is what I thought we were doing) Although I basically still hold the same view on war I think it is very important that we remember, and instill in our younger generation to remember, those who did go to war. My grandfather never spoke about the war, never. The pain he must have carried about what he saw and did is something I can never imagine. The pain he felt at losing a brother, and a brother in law and countless friends is not something I can imagine, nor something we should forget. Tomorrow when they play the Last Post I know I will have a tear in my eye (I always do at that song) but I will be thinking of them and all the other young people that went to war and came back changed people or didn't come back at all.