Cursed to see the dawn

My husband was a man who couldn’t sit down without a pen and paper in hand and all they did was… write. They always wrote to me, they wrote to their brother, and they would write to our sons Roy and Frankie. Of course, then- they would wake up and if one was available talk to me over the phone when at port far away, they worked very hard all day every day and they slept in a rack, so it was not hard for them to get up and go to work, but all they did was write. I couldn’t help but wonder how they did it, I wondered how they had time to write all the time- as a cook with all those hungry men on board. I wondered where he got all the paper from, and I wonder how his writing was so damn neat all the time On June 25, tragedy struck aboard Canada’s beloved H.M.C.S. Fraiser, our navy’s first loss in the war. Twelve miles west of Pointe de la Coubre light at the mouth of Gironde, just past 20:30, Gus faced chaos with a pen in hand. Even as water drenched his paper, his handwriting remained as neat as ever."

I never got to see the words on that page, But I know the boy was sure to make it neat. He wrote as if he was sure, it was his last time to grip the pen, but instead, he was cursed and got to see new dawns.

After many days since this tragedy, my love came home with tear-filled eyes. It was when his foot touched the Halifax Harbor for the first time in months, that I witnessed my man cry for the first time. So many emotions had crashed over him harder than the allied ship that sank his. He had cried even harder at the sight of his two boys, and then me.

Gus, with weak and trembling knees, collapsed into my embrace of sorrow, where he wept. He felt just as sorry as I did, and he made sure I knew it. Gus repeated those powerful words about a thousand times, each one muffled by my arms: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Then He apologized for it getting wet and ruined. We wept for hours and hours, the four of us together huddled in a tight hug and wept not letting go.

He was cursed to see new dawns, and the battle across the Atlantic had not settled. So, they were sent overseas with bows straight into war.

My husband Gus had been transferred to H.M.C.S Margaree it was transferred to Canada from Great Britain to replace the Fraiser where on the way it came to its fate and collided with the ferry. Four months after Fraser, Margaree had hit the ocean floor.

Gus had lost his life, I lost my husband, Frankie and Roy lost their Father and His brother lost a brother.

All this is tragic, but I know He wrote, and I know He’s sorry. He’s sorry His last words never reached me and I sure the hell know He made it neat.

Now I’m cursed as a widow too and my love went down to the sea in ships,

Breaking the curse of dawn.

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