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Before the dozen police cars cleared the Don Valley Parkway and stilled a busy expressway into utter silence, before the snake of white lights signalled the arrival of the long funeral cortège, before we threw our rose petals onto the three black cars below, Helen Zoubaniotis, drinking deeply of it all, sighed and said, "What a wonderful world we have. There is beauty everywhere."

We were on the sidewalk of the Wynford Drive overpass, the side that looks north onto the southbound lanes of the parkway. Around us were the medium-sized office buildings of this part of Don Mills, signs advertising McDonald's and Home Depot, and bigger residential towers under construction.

If it was hardly a traditional picture of loveliness, Ms. Zoubaniotis was nonetheless right. There is beauty everywhere, and so there was even here, in the early evening dark of an early winter's night.

Ms. Zoubaniotis was there with her two kids. The teenage daughter held a Greek flag. They are friends of the family of Private Demetrios Diplaros, one of three Canadian soldiers who were casualties No. 98, 99 and 100 and who came home yesterday.

Pte. Diplaros, 25, Corporal Mark Robert McLaren, just 23, and Warrant Officer Robert John Wilson, 27, were killed last Friday when their armoured vehicle rolled over an enormous improvised explosive device while travelling along a lethal stretch of highway that runs west from Kandahar city.

As Ms. Zoubaniotis said, "We were scared for him, but we were proud of him too. This is something he wanted to do. To die for your country, I think, is a great honour."

Pte. Diplaros had roots in the Peloponnese region, which is in the south of Greece and was home in ancient times to Sparta, but he was a fighting son of Canada and a Toronto boy.

The Wynford overpass, centrally located, was where Pte. Diplaros's namesake uncle Demetrios and aunt Thena Moumos, clutching a framed picture of the young man in uniform to her heart, their son Nick and other relatives came. Nick's brother Gus was travelling with the rest of the sprawling family in the funeral procession, and Nick would call him to find out where along the Highway of Heroes the cortège was. It was here, too, that Linda Hamman, another relative, arrived with small, brown-paper bags filled with the rose petals.

But the family wasn't alone. The crowd began gathering about two hours before the cortège came into sight and was at its biggest about 175 strong, which is a lot of people squeezed onto a narrow sidewalk.

Making its 10th appearance at this overpass was a huge Canadian flag that Marilyn Lawson, a member of Branch 10 of the Royal Canadian Legion, bought in 2002. Ms. Lawson had it in place early, attached to the hand rail so that it was right over the lane where she knew the cortège would travel. Harvey Horlock, with his big Support the Troops flag, was also in position early; Mr. Horlock served for almost 15 years with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, brother unit to the RCR's 1st Battalion, the regiment of the dead soldiers.

Shelley Goodman was one of the first to arrive. A retired Toronto elementary school teacher, she had never before come to the overpass or any other. But she felt compelled this time, not because of the 100th milestone, but because two of her fellow retired teachers have young men in Afghanistan serving on this rotation - one a son, the other a son-in-law. "I'm just astounded at the immensity of it," Ms. Goodman said, then, echoing Ms. Zoubaniotis's remark, "and the gorgeousness."

Long before the cortège was even close, we began to notice that below us, as motorists caught a glimpse of all of us, standing with the Greek and Canadian flags flying and stamping our feet in the cold, they would flash their lights and honk their horns, as if to say they were with us in spirit.

Behind me, to the steady beep-beep-beep of the horns below and over the hum of the big Toronto Emergency Medical Services bus that was now parked on the road, I could hear Ms. Zoubaniotis talking with other family friends in Greek; naturally, being a good Canadian, she apologized for this. Nick Moumos, who is 33, talked about his little cousin with affection, and he and Ms. Zoubaniotis tried to figure out whether it was Centennial College where Pte. Diplaros and his brother Gus had studied auto mechanics together for a while.

Mr. Horlock kept me up to speed about the number of Branch 10 members who were present (about 10, he figured); Ms. Lawson remembered how she took the big flag to Canadian Forces Base Trenton last summer for a big support-the-troops rally and reminisced about growing up in nearby Flemington Park. Mr. and Mrs. Moumos were brought over to the spot above the southbound lanes; by now, she had stopped crying.

It was an oddly congenial, weirdly Canadian crowd.

A little after 5 p.m., Nick phoned Gus (again) and learned the procession was in the Whitby area, just east of Toronto. By 5:25, it was at Kennedy Road; 10 minutes later, we began to see the police cars with their flashing lights tearing down the parkway.

I noticed for the first time that there now was no regular southbound traffic, and that the expressway was completely empty. There were more police cars, and then at about 5:40, Ms. Goodman spotted the first of the lights just south of York Mills Road.

The cortège had left the Highway of Heroes and was coming to us.

Someone shouted, "Get your flowers ready", and then the procession - three funeral cars and various long black limousines - was below us.

In seconds it was gone. On the road below, rose petals covered the ground. Mrs. Moumos thanked us for coming.

Driving home, I heard CFRB radio show host Bill Carroll, who was stationed at the coroner's office in downtown Toronto, where all soldiers' bodies are taken for autopsy, saying, wonderment in his voice, that some of the dead soldiers' family members had rolled down the windows of the hearses to acknowledge the people who were waiting there.

I was reminded of what Michael Herr wrote in his wonderful book about the Vietnam War, Dispatches, how whenever a reporter left the troops (to safety of course, leaving the soldiers behind in some godforsaken, dangerous place), the guys would find a way to thank him for having come, wish him luck. "And what could you say to that?" Mr. Herr asked. What indeed.