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Brother

Brent van Staalduinen

First appeared in Hamilton Magazine, October 2016.

​

 

THE PROCESSION WAS SUPPOSED TO ARRIVE in Hamilton about 6pm, but has been delayed. Despite the dozens of rolling traffic stops at on-ramps along Highway 401, the solemn line of vehicles is moving more slowly than anticipated. The OPP is tweeting live progress updates and warnings along the route. 

 

Procession for Cpl Nathan Cirillo - Use caution if you observe them approaching, move to the right do not stop or get out #highwayofheroes

 

Lots of cars are stopping. Scores get out to line the highway, hands to hearts, as the slain soldier passes, escorted by his friends, parents, sisters, and Marcus, the five-year-old he was raising on his own.

​

I’m glad for the delay, an outpouring of support so strong it can’t help but slow everything down, because now I can be there when Cirillo comes home. It wasn’t going to happen. Although the shooting has affected me deeply, life must come first, especially the everyday details. A shift at the library, where I work, ending at five. A daughter to pick up from daycare who seems extra clingy. A spouse commuting from Burlington. A meal needing to get made.

​

My wife Rosalee calls to tell me that the procession is passing through Pickering.

 

Yeah, I say, I’ve been keeping an eye on it.

 

I heard it on the CBC and thought I’d call. I think you should go.

 

Let’s get dinner sorted out first.

 

You’ll have time when I get home.

 

We’ll see.

 

I end the call and dither with the food for a few minutes before the math kicks in. There will be time. But Nora, my nineteen-month-old, has glued herself to me—I haven’t been able to put her down for at least ten minutes. Her cheek rests against my neck. One hand holds Lambkins, her favourite toy, while the other gently rubs and pats my back. She’s been this way after daycare for a couple of days, come to think of it, needing to be in our arms or never more than a step away. 

 

I arrived at work two days ago unaware of the shootings. Ottawa’s under attack, my colleagues said. I spent an hour scanning the fragmented headlines and Twitter feeds. Multiple shooters and locations. An entire city core in lockdown. Panic. The unknown. I text my brother Dennis, whose family lives and works close to the danger. A difficult wait, then a heart-unchaining moment of relief when my phone signalled the all clear—Dennis at home with their sick daughter, his wife at an office far from the gunfire, their two boys at schools away from the barricades. A short time later, though, I had to step away from my desk and wrestle my emotions back when I learned that it was a soldier who had been gunned down. An Argyll from Hamilton, a reserve Infanteer. While guarding the National War Memorial, of all places. 

 

Still, supper’s in the oven, the time is aligning, and I get to go show my solidarity with the members of the military family I left long ago. Through the obvious grief I feel towards my distant, fallen brother, there is the need to stand on the side of the road to welcome him home.

 

I ask Nora, Want to see something?

 

She lifts her head and looks me in the eye, unsure.

 

I’ll airplane you up the stairs—

 

Yeah! she says, heaving herself over to be released. She stumble-steps to the bottom of the steps and waits, arms up, for Daddy to zoom her up with jet airplane sounds.

​

~~~

​

He filled that uniform, didn’t he? In photos, he was the recruiting-poster prototype of an Infanteer, tall, burly, strong-jawed. You could picture him saying, Yes, Sir, I’ll take that hill. You could picture bullets bouncing off his chest.

 

~~~

 

With Nora watching, I lift a steel, olive-drab ammunition can from the back of the closet. The lever clunks open, the old seals releasing with a sigh. In my final weeks of service, I stole a few things. My favourite pair of combat boots. A dozen empty 5.56mm machine gun links. A camouflage helmet cover and elastic restraining band. A plastic map protractor, suitable for orientation and calling in artillery strikes. A medic’s accessory pouch, stocked with scissors, forceps, PERLA flashlight. A field dressing that had been taped to my tactical webbing. An indestructible, weatherproof ammo can to hold it all. 

​

My beret rests on top of all the pilfered gear. I pick it up, feeling the distant but familiar weight of felted wool, leather, brass. There is the smell of long storage. Fascinated, Nora reaches out and touches the Canadian Forces Medical Service cap badge, the blood red background and gold serpent and staff, and even though the words are probably beyond her, I explain my branch of service, that our job was to help wounded soldiers. I put the beret on at a rakish angle, positioning the cap badge above my left eye, tucking in the appropriate folds, mashing the right side down. 

 

Whenever I’d come across the beret when we moved or shifted things around, my hair was always too long for it to sit right. A few days ago, on a pragmatic whim, I asked the barber to go shorter than usual to buy some extra time before my next haircut. Today the beret sits on my head perfectly, moulded in place, as if I’d never stopped wearing it. In Canada, army regulations state that you have to have your headdress on before you can salute anyone, be it the Queen, a head of state, or a fallen soldier. I’ve dug out this musty beret to have the right headdress on when Cirillo passes by.

 

Nora smiles, so I put it on her head. It’s far too large—she endures cut-off vision for a moment before giggling and casting it to the hardwood floor. Twenty years ago, this would have offended my sense of propriety. Today I just laugh along with her.

​

~~~

​

The photos found online and in the papers afterwards, dug up from family albums and social media, almost invariably feature him smiling. A perfect, beaming grin for his son Marcus. Or pure white against camouflage greasepaint with his Army buddies nearby.

 

~~~

 

Go, Rosalee says after I put the meal on the table. I’ll put Nora to bed.

 

Are you sure?

 

She gives me a look.

 

Yes, this is important, she says. You need to be a part of it.

 

I kiss Nora goodnight, give my wife a grateful squeeze.

 

I love you, she says.

 

I love you, too.

 

I put on my neon yellow cycling gear, turn on my flashers, and set out towards Main and Dundurn, where traffic is heavy and the subdued crowds have been waiting patiently for hours. As I pedal towards Cirillo’s final homecoming route, I am tempted to turn around, overtaken by another feeling—what can I offer, really, aside from a rusty salute?

 

As a reserve Medical Assistant, my service was spent training, in classrooms, and in military clinics, readying myself for peacekeeping duties I was never called to. What holds me closest to those still in uniform, I wonder? Is it that my job was to help them live, heal, and thrive? I changed dressings and dispensed medical advice about the day-to-day afflictions every soldier knows. Blisters. Jock itch. Chafing. Athlete’s foot. Sunburn. Strains and sprains. Heat exhaustion. Poison ivy. I also dealt with more serious issues. Chemical and thermite burns. STDs. Infections. Gashes from careless bayonet drill. Heat stroke. Once, I helped medevac a young recruit who’d been stung by a bee far out in a Petawawa training area, injecting her with Epinephrine, holding her hand, praying as the helicopter dashed nap-of-the-earth to the base hospital, handing her over to the staff just as her throat finally closed and her breathing stopped. Still, I was never in harm’s way. I didn’t bleed. What can I bring?

 

Many of the city’s tow-truck operators have parked all along the off-ramp from the 403, the final highway leg of Cirillo’s journey home. Their flashing lights, along with those from a handful of police cruisers lined up nearby, splash everyone with a surreal, mournfully scattered light. The only sound is traffic. No raucous cheering from the assembled crowd, just quiet contemplation, waiting, and long looks that sweep along the offramp. Anticipation and grief pulling at each other like war horses straining to free their gun from the mud.

 

Red and white, everywhere. Ball caps, t-shirts, hockey jerseys, bandanas, flags, scarves, signs, toques, coats, and dusty Legion poppies. I feel gaudy in my bright cycling gear, like I’ve brought a carnival to Flanders, but my eyes trace all these grieving, hopeful souls, row on row, and feel the strength they have brought to this one intersection, the strength they will lend Cirillo’s family and friends as they drive past.

First responder Barbara Winters’ words, spoken to Cirillo as he lay bleeding and dying at the stone base of the Cenotaph, seize up my chest and throat. I told him he was loved. When you’re dying, you need to be told how loved you are. I skid to a stop, hop up the curb, a handful of the assembled—What would you call them? Mourners? Well wishers? Observers? Supporters?—parting easily to let me through. Two years ago, when I spoke those same words to my wife’s pregnant belly, to our unborn daughter, I was unprepared for the fierceness of them. What it means to give those words to another. You are so loved. Here, I am shattered once more, knowing how right those words are, how true. No one tries to comfort me, but I am not alone. A strange sort of space to be given.

 

I walk my bicycle along the sidewalk, listening to the crowd’s low conversations as I bring myself back under control. There are a lot of solitary supporters here, taking everything in by themselves, shoulder to shoulder with strangers. Couples, too, speaking quietly to each other about the events of the previous few days, sipping Tim Hortons coffee and following the procession on their smartphones. But few groups larger than two or three. Yesterday, two senior citizens had a serious conversation at the end of my library desk, trying to nail down if Cirillo was Hamilton’s or Canada’s son. Both, was the consensus. A respectful lack of resolution.

 

~~~

 

When you’re the honour guard at the Cenotaph, however, you don’t smile. At the foot of the National War Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier laid out before you, set that jaw, fix those eyes straight ahead for everything you do. Marching. Standing to attention. Saluting. Until your relief arrives. Then you can relax, mingle with the tourists, smile and pose with California girls. Some photos will tell this story, too.

 

~~~

 

I run into my friends Peter and Margaret in front of the gas station at the corner of Dundurn and Main. There’s a long embrace instead of a hello.

​

Thanks for being here, Peter says. I was afraid no one would come.

 

What a thing, to be thanked in such a situation. How do you respond? And why should he be worried? I distract myself by removing my helmet and gloves, laying down my bike, and putting on my beret. Margaret watches me line up the cap badge—left hand vertical from my eyebrow, my fingertips moving over the maple leaf wreathing, the rod of Asclepius, the serpent. She puts a hand on my arm.

 

Thank you so much, she says.

 

I want to tell her not to thank me, how little I’ve done, this isn’t about me. But others are watching now, too, smiling and nodding at me when they see the beret, and I can’t deflect all the attention. I mumble something like, I had to be here, I couldn’t miss this, It’s great to see so many people out, This is something, isn’t it? I am small under all this scrutiny. Why am I here?

 

A passing eighteen-wheeler blasts his horn, obscenely loud, startling everyone. A couple of cars take the truck’s cue and honk, too, like they’re following the gaudy tissue-paper paste-ons of a wedding procession. There are a few angry looks and gestures, but mostly people just look at the ground.

 

When the OPP tweets that Cirillo has only made it to Yonge Street and the 401, I decide to jump back on my bike and make my way to the armoury on James Street North, where Cirillo’s unit, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, parades. Although the armoury isn’t on the processional route towards the East End funeral home, its locked and guarded main gates—all of Canada’s military installations remain on high alert—have become the epicentre of local support for Cirillo’s family and fellow soldiers. I’ve seen pictures online and have wanted to go since hearing that a Hamilton soldier fell, but have had no time; now I do.

 

I pedal with traffic, heading downtown. It’s busy, but the traffic along Main Street gives me almost an entire lane, my flashing safety lamps and jacket bright in their headlights. I enjoy the wind against my face and the warmth of my elevated heartbeat. There is a slight wobble from a single spoke that popped out a few weeks ago, knocking the rear wheel out of true. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed.

 

A gorgeous night for a ride, clear and crisp, cool on the edge of cold. People are waiting all along Main, waving flags and signs, many signed with tributes to Cirillo and his son. Moving through the autumn air at full cycling speed keeps my eyes dry, although I can feel them stinging. Winters, in her moving interview last night on CBC’s As It Happens, commented on how beautiful Wednesday was, too, prompting her to stop on her way to work to take a few photos of the sentries guarding the Cenotaph. Like me, she’d been a Medical Assistant in the reserves many years ago.Her training kicked in as soon as she saw Cirillo lying at the foot of the memorial. As she put pressure on his wounds and helped administer CPR, she would have known the seriousness of the situation. But we were trained never to tell a soldier that death is on the way. You tell him how loved he is, say what a good person she is, give him every reason to think about life and hope. The most powerful photograph of the day shows Winters stretched out across the stone, mouth to mouth with Cirillo, breathing life into a stranger.

 

I’m cut off at King William by a black Mercedes. Despite the chill, the driver’s side window is down, and I wonder how he missed my flashing strobe and dayglo jacket. He pulls into a parking spot near the armouries. I’m annoyed, ready to yell something, until I see the car’s Veteran plates. When I pass, he’s just staring out his windshield, his hands on the steering wheel. Not seeing anything. Seeing too much, maybe.

 

The impromptu memorial set up at the Foote Armoury, named after an army chaplain who refused to abandon the wounded men on the beach at Dieppe, has swollen in scale. Hundreds of people are gathered to pay their respects, leaving bouquets of flowers, signs, photographs, stuffed animals, lit candles, wreaths, service medals, flags, crosses. A man in a wheelchair offers to sell me a bouquet to lay at the foot of the memorial wall. I walk my bike along, pausing a few times to read a sign here, study a photograph there.

 

An older woman leans her arms on the handlebar of her medical scooter, covers her eyes.

 

I’d join up right now if they’d let me, she says. I’d go over there and fight those fuckers.

 

I’d send you myself, her friend says, rubbing her back.

 

There are a few quiet smiles from passers-by but no arguments, no corrections to the glaring misunderstanding of where and why. A couple of teenaged girls, arm in arm, look at one of the photographs of the uniformed Cirillo and quietly comment on his good looks. A man kneels and turns his newborn son, asleep in a carseat, towards one of the dozens of flags and reads aloud some of the inscriptions. The words Tragedy, Horrible, and Too Soon are said a lot by those observing the memorial.

 

As I near the armoury’s wrought-iron gates, I’m stopped by a photograph of Cirillo and his son laid against a solitary, white candle, whose flame flickers in the air moved by passing bodies. In the days ahead, young Marcus will wander through the steps of saying goodbye and burying his father without really knowing why or how it will echo. The Argylls will fashion a pint-sized glengarry for him to wear on the day of the funeral. I won’t be able to look at many photos of the gun-carriage-led funeral procession because he’ll be featured in so many. The newspapers and media will call him brave. Perhaps he will be, but for me, a new father who will go home to his daughter, there is little comfort in such words against the reality of a five-year-old boy growing up without a Dad.

 

No soldier expects to be killed at home, much less guarding a peaceful symbol of sacrifice, yet those who wear the uniform know that it represents a willingness to give everything away. I know this feeling, just like I know what it means to reconcile a peace-loving heart to the taking of life to protect others. The terrible paradox of it. How sacred and profane. The need, even twenty years later, to stand with others who have wrestled with the same questions, even after senseless violence seems to mock such intentions.

 

Perhaps this is why I’ve come.

​

~~~

​

You might tell yourself not to look too hard at Cirillo’s stubble, though. Canadian soldiers are supposed to be clean-shaven. There are exceptions: certain religious groups, special forces, combat pioneers, sailors. Moustaches within tightly trimmed parameters. But like his smile and soldier’s good looks, in all those photos his facial scruff is also omnipresent. You wonder if he had a medical exemption from shaving. You did. In training, the CS gas and rubber mask reacted badly to water on your skin. No shaving for two weeks, the MO said. You weren’t even really shaving then, but you were still the envy of C Company.

 

~~~

 

I remove my bike helmet and glasses and don the beret, fighting back the urge to salute the memorial as my emotions swell. It’s not appropriate to salute candles and flowers and photographs, an honour reserved for officers, The Queen, heads of state, flags, and the fallen. Besides, doing so here would be too showy, and I’m already aware of the gaudy splash of camera lights in front of the gates. This is far enough, where I can weep openly but anonymously in the shadows, make my brief stand, pray. I bow my head as my chest heaves, my eyes closed, one hand clenching my handlebar, the other clamping the helmet under my arm, to keep them busy, keep them from covering my face. After a few minutes, there’s a hand on my arm from somewhere nearby, the offer of a tissue, words of comfort from a few people who have gathered around me, drawn by the beret and the soldier sobbing in silence.

 

A woman asks, Did you know him well?

 

Such a tragedy, another voice says.

 

Did you serve together?

 

I feel hands rubbing my back, the warmth of a body next to me. I open my eyes. A middle-aged woman in a Team Canada hockey jersey has moved around my bike and is giving me an awkward, one-armed hug. Her eyes, wet and reflecting the candlelight like jewels, are locked to the memorial.

 

Thank you, she says. Thank you.

 

Nods and repeated thanks from those standing around.

 

I tense up, again feeling an undeserved scrutiny. She's speaking to me, but she doesn't have to, facing all those more worthy keepsakes of memory against the wall. And again, I want to say nothing as I remove the beret from my head and fold it. Yes, I should be here, I’m thinking. Yes, I’m weeping for my fallen brother. But please don’t thank me. Honour him. Look away from me and towards where he should be standing. I want to leave, but the woman is still holding me, so I wipe my eyes and tell her I’m going to walk the length of the memorial. Released with a final squeeze, as I roll my bicycle away, she thanks me once more, the words following me, as shrill to my ears as a bagpipe at a funeral.

 

~~~

 

He enjoyed his tattoos, too. The regs say that they can’t be visible on the throat, head, hands, or feet. Can’t be offensive. The tattoos you see online, his scrolled collarbone tats, Cirillo on his right bicep, the beaded charm on his forearm in sombre black ink, were well hidden when he was in uniform. Clean, you might say. Just the image for an Argyll on display in regimental glengarry, tunic, kilt box-pleated and woven in Government No.1 tartan, red-checked hose, white spats, and horsehair sporran in a pattern known as The Swinging Six.

 

~~~

 

At City Hall, an even larger crowd has gathered, perhaps a thousand strong. I’ve decided to come back here, having passed the growing crowd on the way to the armoury and sensing that this long, straight stretch of Main would be an excellent place to stand. When the first flashing police roll by on motorcycles, sirens chirping for everyone to part and make room, someone in the crowd starts singing O Canada. A few dozen voices pick up the song before tapering off when it becomes clear that the actual procession is still a ways off. Moments later, the anthem swells anew, this time picked up by hundreds of voices, low and powerful, such different intensity than you’d hear for our national song anywhere else. Just as the final words are sung, the next set of police vehicles flashes its way into view, moving slowly. Behind them, a single rank of vehicles, headlights on but dark against the streetlit road.

 

Here he comes. Here they all come.

 

I’m alone in my chosen spot, set back a ways so I can take in the procession without the distraction of cameras, smartphone screens, the well-meant actions and words people use to fill difficult spaces. I told Peter and Margaret that I’d return to Dundurn, but this is a far better place for me to mark the procession. I’ve never been a fan of crowds, even those as wonderful as the ones that have assembled in Cirillo’s name, and I’ve received enough attention tonight. I reach into my pocket again and unfold the beret, again wedging it onto my head, again aligning the badge over my left eyebrow. 

 

A late arrival, a blonde woman in a green windbreaker, stops between me and Main Street and stretches her flag across her chest, arms fully outstretched. She stands there a long moment, facing the maple leaf towards me and looking me in the eye, before turning away to join the throng. I’m grateful for her intentional pause, grateful also for the lack of unnecessary words.

 

The gathered Hamiltonians, quiet before, become silent as the hearse, the limos, and the minivans carrying the honour guard draw near. I stand to attention, draw up my right arm, rest the tip of my middle finger against the edge of my eyebrow, making a straight line from fingertip to elbow, my upper arm parallel to the ground. The clapping begins, gentle but firm, sweeping along the length of the crowd as the procession slow marches by. A wonderful sound, this hushed applause, moving like rain along a stilled city's streets.

 

~~~

 

Filled that uniform right up, sure. Tall, muscular, mortal. You might imagine him hoisting the heroic and unrealistic expectations of a country, Lifting planets. Or instead look at photos of a man who can hold a grown German Shepherd and a five-year-old Marcus all at once, dressed in t-shirt and jeans, full beyond belief, his empty uniform elsewhere. 

 

~~~

 

Afterwards, the sombre crowd begins to disperse. Some make their way to the bars on King Street, to their cars in the parking garage under the Art Gallery of Hamilton, to City Hall to sign the official book of condolences. Many, like me, aren’t ready to go. We stand and shuffle our feet against the gentle chill, speak quietly with our kids and friends and parents, stare out at Main Street as though the procession remains. My eyes are still full, my heart perhaps to bursting. Tomorrow, a CBC reporter will write that this moment is what a city in mourning looks and feels like, a collective grief that, briefly allowed to purpose itself against the slow-moving parade of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and a single, laden hearse, doesn’t know what to do with itself. That an emptiness will follow.

 

I’m not so sure.

 

That Cpl. Nathan Cirillo’s family, friends, and comrades-in-arms will experience an unfillable hole is a given. But I swear that people are carrying more with them as they leave here than they did when they arrived. This means something. We are better now, even as we mourn. 

 

I slide off my old beret and fold it into a proper pocket wedge so the felted wool will keep its shape for another twenty years. Immediately after basic training, when we paraded into our classrooms to begin our medical training, our instructors scheduled an unofficial lecture to make sure everyone had formed their headdresses properly. Our liners were cut out, the leather behind the cap badges trimmed, the tassels cut and melted back, the dark green berets immersed in water. I formed my beret on my head while it was soaking wet, water dripping down my face, and wore it that way for an entire day as it shrunk to the contours of my head. No one else can wear it. Tonight, released, my scalp is cool against the damp night air. My eyes become clear.

 

A young guy, maybe in his early twenties, unshaven, dressed in dark, slouched clothing, stops next to me, ball cap under one arm.

 

He asks, Did you know him well?

 

A newly familiar question. I shake my head.

 

No, I served a long time ago.

 

I thought about joining up, he says. But my education was too important.

 

This, too, is a common refrain, not just tonight but whenever the topic comes up. Especially among men. I understand—my service was not the culmination of a lifelong ambition, but mostly the result of walking into the Ottawa recruiting office with a friend who needed support. The moment I was entrusted with a rifle, live ammunition, and the confidence of a nation to know when to shoot and when to hold fire, it became immeasurably more. People often apologize that they didn’t serve, looking for something from the person who has. I don’t want to respond—anything I say will diminish what the man in front of me has accomplished—but he’s waiting for me to do so.

 

We all contribute in our own way, I say.

 

Yeah. Thanks.

 

He smiles, grateful, as though I’ve blessed him somehow.

 

Be safe, brother, he says.

 

You too, I want to say, but my vocal cords have tightened themselves again. City Hall has become a blurred, shimmying mess of light. I can only nod, put on my gloves, pick up the bicycle at my feet. He shuffles away, his hat staying under his arm, leaving me with thoughts of family, of cities and countries sharing sons and daughters. And me, an unlikely sibling.

​

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© Brent van Staalduinen

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