‘We Can’t Forget Them’: Silver Cross Mother Cherishes Memory of Fallen Son

Canada’s 2025 Silver Cross Mother, Nancy Payne, says her son, Randy, was always a playful child.

“He was a character,” Payne told The Epoch Times. “He was very funny. He was charming. He was very athletic. He was a busy little boy when he was young. You knew he was around because he was lively. … He always had this big grin on his face and that twinkle in his eye.”

The Silver Cross Mother is chosen each year by the Royal Canadian Legion to represent all mothers who have lost a son or daughter in military service. Payne will lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Nov. 11.

Randy Payne died in Afghanistan on April 22, 2006, along with three other soldiers after a roadside bomb hit the military G-Wagon they were riding in on a return trip to Kandahar Airfield.

Payne says despite being a military family with a long history of service, it never gets easier to lose a loved one. She said she was at home by herself when she received news of her son’s death.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I know when they join, you think it’s possible that something could happen, but you never think it would happen to your own.”

Payne said she was hesitant about Randy going overseas. 

“He was so excited and hepped up about it. I didn’t really want him to go, but I didn’t want him to know that I wasn’t happy, because he was happy. So I had to be happy for him,” she said.

“He was only there, well, not quite three months. He went at the end of January and he was killed the 22nd of April, so he wasn’t there that long.”

Randy left behind a wife and two children, a son who was 7 years old at the time and a daughter who was 5. His son now serves as a combat engineer in the armed forces.

Randy’s military career began in 2003, and shortly after he became a member of the Close Protection Team in Kandahar just two years after joining the armed forces. The Close Protection Team was assigned to protect important individuals who visited Afghanistan.

He was the 15th of 158 Canadian soldiers who died during Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. His name is inscribed on the Canadian Police and Peace Officers’ Memorial in Ottawa, on a bridge in Gananoque, Ont., and on that town’s local cenotaph.

Military Family

Payne met her husband, David, when he was stationed in Germany. After they married, she moved there to be with him.

“That’s where he [Randy] was born. We were there for nine years altogether, two different tours, then we moved back to the Gananoque area.”

She and her husband come from long-serving military families dating back to 1916.

“One thing he did tell me, before we got married, he said, ‘It’s a good life, but a hard life,’” she said. “I saw both sides of that, because he was away a lot on exercises over in Germany with the Germans and the French and the Americans.”

Serving in the Canadian Armed Forces wasn’t the first career choice for Randy, Payne said, adding that he joined when he was around 30 years old.

“It was his forte. I mean, he excelled in it. He was a quick learner,” she said. “They all looked up to him, and he was in the first group to go over to Afghanistan in that capacity.”

She said it’s important for Canadians to remember those who have died in service.

“My main message is not to forget the young men and women who lost their lives. We can’t forget them. We have to keep their memory alive. I guess this is one way that I can do it, is by talking about Randy and our loved ones to people.”

Payne has been presenting a special athletic award to students at Randy’s former high school in Gananoque for nearly 19 years. It’s called the Captain’s Award and is given to a student who demonstrates leadership, athletic skill, and good grades.

She said each year on Remembrance Day, the family lays wreaths for Randy in the village of Lansdowne, Ont., and Gananoque, and continues to recall memories of him.

“We talk about Randy just like it was yesterday. We can share stories and whatnot, and we laugh. I think it’s wonderful that we can do that,” Payne said.

She said one of Randy’s grandchildren has similar traits to her son.

“He is quite a character and he reminds us, in ways, of Randy. So it’s just Randy’s legacy is living on with them, which is wonderful.”

Silver Cross Mother

Payne said it’s a “tremendous honour” to have been chosen as this year’s Silver Cross Mother and to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial during the Remembrance Day service in Ottawa on Nov. 11.

Throughout the year, she will perform other duties that honour those who have died in service.

“I thought it would just be going and laying a wreath, but there’s a lot more to it,” she said. “It means a lot.”

The Silver Cross Mother initiative was established in 1919 to acknowledge mothers of sailors, pilots, and soldiers who have died in wars. The Legion describes it as “a symbol of personal loss and sacrifice on behalf of widows and mothers who lose a child on active duty, or whose death is later attributed to such duty.”