If you drive though the wheat country in central-western New South Wales you’ll come across Honour Rolls on obelisks in the main street or in a church hall nearby. On those Honour Rolls are the names of Australians who died in uniform overseas - and among them are ancestors and relatives of mine. Here a Boyd, there a Bailey, a Balfour, a Summerfield, a Lawrence, and many more. To me, Anzac Day means remembering the sacrifice of those that didn’t make it home.
In watching the marches of those who survived and those who survived the fallen, I keep in mind those friends and colleagues in my own life, uniformed and not, who served Australia overseas and never made it home.
A colleague (Canadian) asked me if the marches were a form of celebration rather than solemn memorial. I think that we cheer at Anzac Day marches not for the glory of war but the magnitude of the sacrifice and our support for those who march.
The Old Celts used to honour their dead between Autumn and MidWinter at the time they called Samhain. It is said that they were fatalists, and believed that they would die on their appointed day and that nothing could stop them making this appointment. Some took this to an extreme - that if they could not die until they died, that they should live while they lived and not shirk from danger. If this were true then there would be some comfort for those of us that live, and must contemplate our own mortality at times like this.
For me it is also about remembering those who made it home and whose lives were changed forever by the experience there and back - mostly back.