Probably just a coincidence.

Today, Remembrance Sunday morning, found me out in the garden.

I was engaged in the age old tasks of tilling the soil and sowing (broad beans), raking up leaves and so on.

At 11 o'clock, I paused and leaned on my rake in quiet contemplation. I thought of two young men, great uncles who I never knew, who gave their lives during the First World War.

They were gardeners too. They would probably have done these very same jobs in the gardens where they worked. Although I never knew them and can only imagine what they went through, somehow I felt a vague sense of connection through our shared interest in gardening.

As two Apache helicopters flew overhead on their way to a nearby Remembrance service, I reflected on how different the world is today from that which they knew and yet how the rituals of the garden remain the same year after year.

Five minutes later my neighbour called across the garden fence, holding up my battered old hand fork and asking "Is this yours by any chance?" She'd found it laying in the grass on her side of the fence.

This old fork, a much loved family 'heirloom' which has been in the family for at least three generations, had gone missing about a month ago. I'd more or less given up on it, resigned to the fact that I'd lost it.

I recalled my grandmother using that fork in her garden when I was a boy. She remembered those two brothers-in-law who were lost in the war and always preferred to spend Remembrance Sunday in the garden rather than attending any service. "Too many painful memories" she would say.

Now I'm a rational person, not given to superstition or flights of fancy. I'm sure it was nothing more than a fortunate coincidence.

Wasn't it?

 

But what a wonderful, meaningful, coincidence it was. Lovely story for a special day, thank you Trunky.

 

Well that sent a shiver down my spine

 

Coincidence or not Trunky, Remembrance Sunday is even more special for you now.

 

What a lovely story to warm the heart!

 

Marvelous Trunky....that made me go all 'goosey'....

 

Thank you for sharing that heart warming experience, Trunky.

So pleased you have your fork back too.

 

Coincidence? who knows? I believe there are many things we don't understand!!

Val

 

A wonderful thread that I have come across tonight. Thank you for sharing that special link with us,
Jenny