They arrived on Sunday, and we headed out for Normandy on Tuesday morning. As most of you know, Norma's father is buried there. She was just a young toddler when he was killed on July 30, 1944 in WWII. Norma herself did not get to visit his grave until a year ago when she and Jim took a trip over here. This was her second time to get to visit. Who would have dreamed that one day she would get to take her entire family there. It was truely a special moment for all of us and I'm so happy we got the opportunity to go together.
We headed out in the pouring rain and it rained almost the entire way. Every once in a while we would see blue sky, then clouds would come rolling back in and it would pour. I prayed the whole way, and so did Norma, that it would stop when we got there so that we could enjoy the moment. God answered our prayer and the weather held out! We were so thankful.
When we arrived, we checked in and headed out with the tour guide. We didn't get to watch the movies they provided for fear of the weather worsening. We took it while we had our chance. The tour guide was very nice and gave us a lot of good information about what they know of that day he died. Jordyn was a little rambunctious so I had to take her exploring while they listened. I have it on video, but have yet to watch it. I did hear him say it was the deadliest day for his unit and he was killed near St. Lo. I also learned the Normandy is the second most visited American Cemetery, after Arlington. I also recall him saying that it took a few years for the bodies to be moved to the cemetery, therefore there is no alphabetical order to the burials. They are buried as their bodies were transported in from where they were originally laid to rest. The families back home had the choice of whether to leave their loved ones buried in France, or have them shipped back to America for burial. I have to put myself in Mrs. Chick's position and wonder what a hard choice that must have been. I'm sure she did what he would have wanted, even if it was more difficult for her.
After we snapped our pictures we headed down toward the beach. It was just gorgeous and the tide was coming in. The walk down was a lengthy walk, but worth it. The boys had fun finding rocks to bring home in remembrance. We all made the walk back up and since the weather was still holding out, we headed over to the bunkers. The boys thought it was there own personal playground and loved climbing in and out of them. We got some cute pictures of them there as well. However, this is when I realized my camera had broken after dropping it in the sand. Thank goodness we still had Norma's!
Norma - if I got any of this information wrong, let me know so I can correct it.
We spent about 3 - 4 hours at the cemetery and then headed on out to our next destination. We had a full day of driving there, about 6+ hours and no food in our bellies to speak of. Ahhh... what we would have given for a McDonald's on the side of the road. Fast food is just hard to come by in Europe, so after several side roads looking for SOMETHING to eat, we opted for a delicious sandwich from the gas station. Yummm.... Eventually, we made the 2 1/2 hour trip back to the hotel we were staying at in EuroDisney. It was about 10pm by the time we got there and we were all tired. The kids were being troopers and didn't complain the entire day.... even considering we never fed them a "meal."
The next stop? Paris. Stay tuned.
3 comments:
Wow, what an experience for all of you. I have to admit that I got pretty misty eyed looking at all of those pictures.
What an awesome thing to get to experience as a family!
What a wonderful experience!!
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