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Candy Greff will have someone special on her mind Friday.
Greff is this year’s Silver Cross Mother and, as such, will lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa as part of the Remembrance Day ceremony.
“It will be Byron that will be at the very forefront of my mind,” Greff told Gormley guest host Taylor MacPherson. “I feel he’s going to be either watching or right beside me walking with me (and) helping me lay that wreath.
“I’m just so honoured to be able to do that in his memory and for all of the other Silver Cross Mothers and families. I like to always add ‘families’ when I say that because it’s not just the mother that’s affected; it’s the father, it’s the brother, it’s the sister, it’s the aunt, it’s the wife, it’s the kids.
“There’s so many extended family and they’re all so important and all loved him very, very much.”
Greff’s son, Master Cpl. Byron Greff, was killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan on Oct. 29, 2011. Greff, 28, was the last of 158 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
Greff, who was born in Swift Current, was a member of the Third Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He had joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 2001.
“He wasn’t (following in family footsteps in the military), and he didn’t say specifically what his reason was for wanting to join,” recalled Candy, who was born in Regina and raised in Radville before settling in Lacombe, Alta.
“He did attend army cadets in Red Deer — which is close to Lacombe here — and enjoyed that, but in Grade 10 and Grade 11, he didn’t continue on with the cadet program. Grade 12 is when he said, ‘Mom and Dad, I would like to join the Armed Forces.’ ’’
Candy said that news was surprising to her and her husband, Greg.
“I think my mouth probably dropped open, most likely,” she said. “He was such a determined soul that we knew that this was what he wanted to do and we supported him wholeheartedly in that decision.”
Byron graduated from battle school in Wainwright, Alta., in 2002 and his commanding officer at the time warned Greff’s parents that their son may be sent to Afghanistan.
While that didn’t happen for another five years, Candy remembered the emotion of the moment when Byron was sent overseas in 2007.
“When he was leaving on that first tour, it was very difficult — very, very difficult — to hear that he was going, but we trusted in the military’s training,” she said. “They do such a wonderful job training all of their soldiers, so that trust put us a little bit at ease. But we did know he was going into war.”
In late October of 2011, Byron and 20 other people were killed when a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into an armoured bus carrying troops through Kabul. Byron left behind his parents, two siblings, a wife and two young children.
Candy got the news from Byron’s wife, Lindsay.
“She received a knock at her door in Morinville, where they lived, and then she had to make the phone call to us,” Candy said. “(The reaction was) shock — utter and total shock.
“I don’t know what I said to her on the phone at that moment. I’m not sure if that will ever come back to my recollection … (That kind of news) just changes absolutely everything.”
On Friday, thousands of people watching the ceremony on television, those attending the ceremony in Ottawa and those at other ceremonies across Canada will be thinking of families like the Greffs who lost family members who were serving their country.
Candy said those families are all connected.
“Those loved ones are physically gone, but our love for them is not ever gone,” she said.
