Sacred Journey
Dearest Old Bolds, Friends, and Family,
It’s been over a week since I left the US, and it’s been a joyful whirlwind. I took some time in England for important visits. The journey took me along to Birmingham, where I visited the last living Sherwood Ranger who fought against Charley in Africa. Graham Stevenson was sixteen when he joined up (he was 6’3” – he lied, and they believed him). He fought in Africa from the tender age of seventeen onwards until it ended there in 1943 when he was a much-older-than-his-years nineteen. Shortly after the D-Day invasion, he was machine-gunned by some Germans while doing a reconnaissance in the hedgerows of Normandy and never returned to the war.
While I was in England, Graham and I visited Cannock Chase, the largest German military cemetery in the country. Here rest German airmen and naval personnel killed over the UK or in UK waters during both World Wars, including Zeppelin crews of World War I. It is a beautiful place, maybe one of the only German military cemeteries I have visited which can be described as lovely. It hides tucked away behind an English military cemetery down a tiny country road in the Midlands. Lush grass covers the rolling hills like a carpet, and the surrounding trees are filled with a variety of song birds who fill the place with a country English perfectitude. There are no airplanes overhead, no motorways or traffic nearby, no houses or buildings in sight. We were cast off from our inane daily lives.
There were no other living humans here, but it was not lonely. A slight breeze whispered peacefully to us as we overlooked so many young men who had been forced to give their lives in a war not of their making. Graham holds absolutely no enmity against those who bombed and attacked his country, nor for those who tried to kill him in Normandy. “They had a job to do, just like I did.” He wanted to make sure that I’d gotten it right. There are some Germans buried in lonely places that go to his account. Coming here allows him to remember them as the humans they were: brothers, fathers, husbands, sons.
During my visit, Graham sadly explained that his plans to join us in Normandy for the D-Day celebrations this year had been cancelled by those who had promised to bring him. It seems he was too much of a burden to them as he is now – slow, hard of hearing, using a cane and a wheelchair. He cannot stand long, his old legs don’t hold up so well anymore. But the soul of that young man who fought and nearly died for his country – to save the world really – still inhabits his aging body. For him, the annual pilgrimage as a Sherwood Ranger to Normandy is sacred. As long as his body moves, he must go. As long as air still fills his lungs, he must represent the men who fought and died alongside him. As long as his heart still beats, his friends – his comrades – shall never be forgotten. To be left behind, alone at home, is the cruelest of all deeds.
This year a new plaque will be dedicated at Gold Beach to him and those who fought with him – the World War II Sherwood Rangers – to liberate Normandy. For months, Graham looked forward to the ceremony and feast. He needed to be there. We decided to make it happen. We offered to take Graham with us, and to our joy, he accepted. Now, with two World War II veterans with me, I am clearly the one who has gained an immense treasure.
The last several days have been spent in a flurry making flight and hotel reservations for Graham, changes to our schedule in order to pick him up from the airport in Paris, and dry runs on the creative packing of a rental car to ensure we three, our luggage, and the wheelchairs and walkers will all fit.
A tremendous present has been bestowed upon Charley and me. It is an incredible honor to enable and accompany a worthy hero as he takes the honor due him and his fallen comrades. The ability to spend days on end with Graham, to travel together, to escort him to Gold Beach, to Bayeux, to the place where he was wounded in Tilly-sur-Seulles – it is like a dream come true for us. And we can’t wait.
The journey from Germany into Belgium has already started. Today we landed in Ypres and tomorrow we have a WWI battlefield tour here. Then we’re on to Dunkirk, Calais, Dieppe, and Paris, to pick up Graham.
There’ll be more later. Until then, with love,
heather
