**I was so excited to blog about the Garden of Remembrance, and I wrote up this blog, and I realized that I hadn’t taken any photos of it on my phone–only on my camera. I will add a photo to the blog once I am home and have access to my dongle!**

I am currently working on the research process of my Master’s thesis, in which I am writing about the traumatizing aspects of being the wife of a traumatized soldier during World War I. This research has made me become familiar with different war memories, whether that materializes in texts and media or traditional parks and statues. A message on the wall of this memorial rendered me speechless, and I say that beyond just the figure of speech. Entitled “We Saw a Vision,” it said:

“In the darkness of despair we saw a vision. We lit the light of hope, and it was not extinguished in the desert of discouragement. We saw a vision. We planted the tree of valor, and it blossomed. In the winter of bondage we saw a vision. We melted the snow of lethargy, and the river of resurrection flowed from it. We sent our vision aswim like a swan on the river. The vision became reality. Winter became summer. Bondage became freedom. And this we left to you as your inheritance. O Generations of freedom remember us, the generations of the vision.

There is so much to talk about in this passage. I’m most interested in the nature of the message: it is a letter to later generations from the ‘visionaries’. I have never encountered a memorial that demands its attendees to remember, and I find that power amazing.