Lest we forget

Words and imagery by Ruby Spark. Edited by Liam Stretch

As we approach a very different ANZAC Day than many of us have ever experienced, it gives us an opportunity to stop, look back and contemplate where we came from. The 25th of April for some will be a difficult day this year; they won’t be able to gather in the usual way. Ruby Spark has shared her thoughts in a poem about what this time in isolation feels like to her.

I am sitting in my kitchen in the temperamental Christchurch sun, with Anzac Day so soon but also further away than it’s ever felt. It’s strange to look at the parallels, between our war and theirs, the loss of life always feels the same, and maybe the hopelessness towards it too. But I can’t help feeling purposeless, held hostage in the luxuries of my own life. The lazy waking, walking, resting routine I have found myself in and the guilt that accompanies it.

My great grandad fought a war 104 years ago, a war with fire and smoke and so many sheet covered bodies. They were huddled down together, in boats and bunks and bunkers connected in their suffering, in their hope, their sacrifice. My great grandad fought an enemy he didn’t want to see, only heard, in Morse code shell fire, and cries stifled in the night. He fought an enemy, that when faced, looked like him and fell like him and cried over the bodies of his brothers like him.

My great grandfather left his family in pride and fear. Sent letters across oceans just to see the ink left by the hands of his mother, his father, his brother. But he was surrounded by brothers, in a way he hadn’t experienced before – focused on the same goals, the same wants. Collectively they had a purpose, a power; a reason for life for death.

I guess we too are fighting a war, now, but a war with masks and gloves and so many sheet covered bodies. In our homes, we are isolated in bread and books and beds; sharing our small joys, our hope, our gratitude. We are fighting an enemy we can’t see; we don’t hear the weapons, just observe the fallout. The empty parking lots, lines at supermarkets, overgrown parks we walk through. We fight an enemy we don’t face; don’t fight in the active sense of the word. We fight by sitting, at home, alone, together.

Contact with family and friends is robotic and frustrating, but instantaneous and constant. We are connected in our lack of new shows to watch, cookies to bake – purpose; focused on the same goals, our first good coffee, takeaways from that Thai place down the road, dancing in a crowd.

They were fighting a war, and we are fighting one too – causality and unfairness and sorrow common. My family usually go to the dawn service on Anzac Day, wear the medals my great grandfather brought home with him. But I guess this year we will recognise their sacrifice through our own, their loss of life, for the loss of our social ones. It’s a weird and sad and humbling comparison to make: my life and his 100 years apart. Here, when time slides slower than ever.