Anzac Day — A Place Held in the Heart

Today in Australia it is Anzac Day.

It is a day that asks us to stop and remember.

To remember those who went to war and never came home… those who gave their lives, and those whose lives were forever changed. It is also a day to honour the veterans who returned — not only for their courage, but for everything they carried with them long after the war ended.

For me, this day is deeply personal. Both of my grandfathers served in World War II. My late husband served in an active war. So, this is not something distant or abstract. It lives within my family, within my memories, within my own life.

When I think of Anzac Day, I don’t only think of sacrifice. I think of love.

I think of families who waited. Of hope that held on for as long as it could. Of the space left behind when someone did not return. And of those who did return, carrying memories that shaped the rest of their lives.

Today I spent time with these thoughts through a pencil drawing.

Not as something grand, but as something real. A way to stay with what this day means to me, and to remember through the language I know best — through lines, through form, through attention.

Art cannot change what has been. But it can hold a moment, a memory, a feeling.

My heart is with all families who have lost loved ones, and with all veterans who continue to carry their memories forward.

I remember them. We remember them.