Although Patrick Conway died more than 90 years ago, my wife and our children were (as far as we know) the first members of his family to ever visit his grave. For my wife it was a moving experience. I can understand what she was feeling as I felt the same things when I was walking the area around the River Marne where my own grandfather fought with the American Army in 1918. My grandfather lived through the war, but my wife's great-grandfather did not. Both were Irishmen fighting on the same side in different uniforms.
Here's what my wife experienced standing at the grave.
My first thoughts were for my father who had never gotten the chance to see where his Grandfather was buried. Standing in front of the grave generations of Conways and Farrells seemed to be present.
We were all there to pay our respects to a man who had died in 1916. I kept picturing my Dad standing there. He would have loved to have visited Bethune. In his time it was just too expensive to do that. He was a working man with a family to support and going to France was not a possibility.
For me, going to my great-grandfather's grave was a necessity. I wanted him to know that his family is proud of him. I wanted him to know that his descendants were thinking of him. Standing there looking at that faded gravestone, I wanted him to know that he was not "a stranger without even a name, enshrined forever behind a glass frame. "He was a living and breathing human being who is remembered and honoured by his family.
