Museums

Ottawa is full of museums.  And to be truthful I have seen most of them when the girls were small.......... especially the Aviation museum (multiple times - ughhh gag me) 

But there is a relatively new museum in Ottawa.  The War Museum.  W has been when it opened........ kids from school have been.  I have not been.  So on Saturday I told W I would really like to go if he didn't mind going through it again.

 The museum is devoted to every war Canadians fought in....... from 1812 right up to the present time.  I was pretty much sure I would see various guns and tanks and military uniforms............. but I had also heard the museum had a walk through replica of the trenches from World War I - and it has a room dead center that has a war memorial - and you get to it via a maze of stone hallways ........... the amazing part of that room is - there is a window on the opposite wall from the memorial - and it is positioned in such a way that on November 11th (our Remembrance Day) at exactly 11:00 a.m. (if the sun is shining) a beam of sunlight will cut across the room and land on the memorial. That fascinated me and I wanted to see it.

So W and I started our tour of the War Memorial....... we just walked up and down hallways - quietly - studying the pictures/artifacts reading the explanations.  

Come with me and let me show you a little bit of what we experienced........

Can you see the face covered by hands?

This was actually not a painting per say but a piece of actual camouflage material

a gun powder holder

 from inside the WWI trenches

 a tableau of death from WWII

The memorial the sun hits on 11/11 at 11:00a.m.

I guess I got quieter and quieter as we walked through the exposition.  W at one point took my arm and guided me through a door and we were standing on a balcony of sorts looking down on tanks and up to airplanes - we were alone out there and I felt as though I couldn't catch my breath.  W said to me quietly "it's ok - everyone feels strong emotions when they come through here" and from out of nowhere the tears came - sliding softy and gently down my cheeks.  So many lives lost - so many families killed - so much pain and devastation - it tore at my heart. 

 This is Morse code cut out of the building - it says (in both official languages) 

Lest we forget.