Lest we forget

ANZAC Day carries a certain quiet in the air, a slowing, a softening, a turning toward the people who shaped the bones of our families.

In my whānau, we still gather on this day. Not out of obligation, but out of love - a way of keeping the stories alive, of letting the past breathe alongside us. And even though I think of my grandfather often - his steadiness, his kindness, the way his wisdom still sits in my chest - ANZAC Day gathers his story into a different kind of light.

Grahame Turner, aka "Pup" was only eighteen when he left Aotearoa. He was trained as a fighter pilot, then redirected to Bomber Command the moment he arrived in England - he was told this was because too many young men had been lost, and more were needed. He flew thirty missions over Germany. Thirty. And for most of his life, the weight of those memories lived inside him without words.

I imagine him at that age - barely grown, carrying responsibility no nervous system is built for, guiding a crew through the unimaginable, not knowing if he would ever see home again. And I think of his parents

here, waiting through long stretches of silence, hoping both their sons would return. His brother Jack, held as a prisoner of war, surviving off snails and dandelions, found while being forced to march hundreds of miles through thick snow in broken boots. Both brothers made it home. Many didn’t.

And woven into that story is my Nan - waiting for the love of her life to return so they could begin their life together. Holding hope through uncertainty. That kind of waiting is its own quiet courage.

ANZAC Day is for them. For all of them. Lest we forget.

As I sit with their stories today, I find myself thinking about courage in a wider, more human sense - not as a comparison, and certainly not as an equivalence, but as a thread that runs through so many different lives.

In her book "Hey Warrior," Karen Young writes that "anxiety always exists alongside courage." That line always stays with me. Because courage isn’t the absence of fear. It is what rises with fear - in the same breath, the same heartbeat.

And in a completely different way, I see that in so many neurodivergent people. The daily resilience it takes to move through a world that wasn’t designed with their nervous systems in mind. The quiet bravery of showing up while overwhelmed, misunderstood, or stretched thin. Not a battlefield. Not a war. But still a form of courage that deserves to be named and recognised. It's the kind that lives in the body, steady and persistent.

Maybe that’s what ANZAC Day reminds me of: that courage has many shapes.

Some loud.

Some unspeakable.

Some invisible.

Some carried by eighteen‑year‑olds in Lancaster bombers.

Some carried by those who waited at home.

Some carried by people navigating everyday life in a world that asks too much of their senses, their energy, their hearts.

Different stories. Different scales. But the same truth: courage and fear often walk side by side.

Today I honour Pup, Jack, Nan, and all who served - and all who waited. I also honour the quiet, daily courage of those who keep going in a world that can feel overwhelming.

Lest we forget.

x Rebecca