Sorrow

This is a snapshot of a project you can find here. Each poppy represents a Canadian from Toronto who died in World War Two. Tiny tree lined enclaves painted red. On Markham Street in the Annex two brothers at 745, one killed in 1942 in the air force. Two years later the second dying in Belgium with the poor bloody infantry. A few doors down towards Bloor another airman. Up towards Dupont two from a single address. Different names, half brothers perhaps? A rooming house? One gone down with his ship in early '45, the war winding down, Germany in ruins. The other killed liberating France with the Toronto Scottish.A few streets away at 248 and 250 Albany, another airman and his neighbour, a rifleman, killed on June 6th, 1944.If I go to eastern Toronto I find a home across the street from my own. Friends of ours once lived there. Long before they did so did a young man named Malcolm Bell, son of Malcolm and Elsie, shot down over Germany on November 3rd, 1943. I look at Roseheath, the...