Seeing father's overseas grave for 1st time a dream come true for N.S. senior

Saying hello and goodbye in one breath.

That was Harriet Jenereaux's experience when the 75-year-oldtravelled to the Netherlands this fall to see her father's grave for the first time a father she never had the chance to meet.

Jenereaux's father,Edison Alexander Smith,went to fight in the Second World War before she was born and never came back. The sergeant with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders died in battle at Bienen, Germany on March25, 1945.

Jenereaux who was born in her father's hometown ofWestpoint, P.E.I., but currently lives near Merigomish, N.S. was only threeyears old at the time.

Her lifelong wish to see her father's grave in the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, near Nijmegen, came true in September thanks to a charity called Wish of a Lifetime, which helps seniors fulfill their dreams.

"There was always a hole in my heart," Jennereaux told the CBC's Information Morning."And it's just full of memories now."

Crying for 'what I never had'

Jenereauxsaid she was greeted at the airport with flowersand escorted to her accommodations. "If I was the Queen of England, they would not have treated me any better," she said.

An organization in The Netherlands called Faces to Graves arranged to have an image of her father's face placed on his graveand for the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 005, based in the Netherlands, to perform a ceremony at the site "just for me," she said.

There was even a trumpet playing The Last Post, she said.

When she arrived at her father's grave, Jenereaux said,"I put my arms around the tombstone and then I got down on my knees and I started talking to him."

She told her father about his grandchildren, great-grandchildrenand great-great-grandchildren, and "the tears, they just flowed."

Jenereaux said she was crying "for what I never had."

She said her very first memory in life is that of her mother crying at the news of her father's death. "I slept with my mom," she said."I can remember her body shaking with tears at night."

Father died a hero

Jenereaux also travelled to Bienen, Germany to lay a bouquet of sunflowers at the very spot where her father was killed. "It was very moving," she said.

Her escort, local historian Josef Becker, told her he credits her father with saving the life of his friend, Maj. David Dixon.

Becker told Jenereaux that her father had returned to the battlefield to help the woundedand managed to protect Dixon from enemy fire only to lose his own life in the process.

"If he hadn't been such a hero, he might have come home," she said.

For Jenereaux, the trip overseas was a journey to remember.

"I was overwhelmed[the entire time]," she said, includingby how much they loved the Canadians, how well they cared for the graves, and "how often they pause to remember."