Every November our Episcopal church holds a special service to honor veterans. I’m not a regular in attendance, but when I’ve been to this event it’s touched me, this strange, old-fashioned display of patriotism not just for America but for the church’s Anglican heritage. We affix poppies to our shirts and sing the national anthems of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and America. There’s “Taps” on trumpet and “Flowers of the Forest” on bagpipe and a reading of “In Flanders Fields.”

My grandmother was born in 1918, the year World War I ended and Remembrance Day (or Veterans Day as we say in the U.S.) began. She’s among the oldest in our congregation but hardly unique in having an intimate knowledge of war. It struck me as I scanned the many bald heads and fluffy white perms in the pews, each one held at attention: What privations have these people suffered? During the music or moments of silence, what faces of fallen brothers, friends, or comrades were appearing before them?

At times it feels there’s an insurmountable political gulf between their generation and my own. My grandmother will air her latest Fox News–informed grievance and if I’m not excusing myself to refill my wine, I’m rocking back and forth to an internal chant of “She’s 94. She’s 94. She’s 94.”

Sunday’s service reminded me how much we’re losing as her generation passes away. So much history. So much patriotism—real and hard won, not the faux-stalgia peddled by country musicians. With all due respect to our present-day veterans, who are heroes, my peers don’t know this kind of patriotism because we haven’t “gone to war” en masse, and I certainly hope we never will. But I also wish I had a time capsule in which to store the feelings that flowed from church this past Sunday.