Remembrance Day 2011

Remembrance Day is a day of ever evolving meaning. As children, we merely remember receiving poppies and sitting on hard gymnasium floors through long assemblies; being told to remember, and hearing the stories of the past, yet their message was ultimately lost on us. We heard the word “freedom” and were told to remember and be thankful, yet we couldn’t grasp the concept of freedom for we couldn’t define sacrifice.
As children in Canada our hardships are limited. We often don’t realize that the ease of our lives is a direct result of others pain and hardships. Freedom is a concept that is hard to grasp; hard to define, and therefore at times hard to appreciate. Yet as we get older, as we learn our history as Canadians, a definition and appreciation begins to form.
My appreciation for my freedom came while I was in Uganda, Africa. I had traveled there to teach, yet after the first day I realized I would be more of a student than a teacher.  I had utter loss defined for me; I heard stories from hundreds of orphans who had witnessed their families’ gruesome deaths.  I then had fear defined for me; when I learned that the children didn’t have their ears pierced for vanity like us, rather their piercings ensured their safety. For once the children are considered to have shed blood, they are considered impure, and free from the threat of abductors.
It is a reality we don’t have to face. A reality that is even hard to imagine. Yet it exists not too far away.  It was a reality I knew not of while I was sitting on that hard gymnasium floor. It is a reality we will never have to face, because we are free. We are considered a free nation yet we are free because we are not forced to fear, and we can maintain our innocence as individuals and a nation. There is a reason for our eternal innocence and courage, thousands and thousands of reasons.
Thousands of men and women have given their lives so that we as Canadians can be free; so that we can enjoy the gifts of freedom. It’s something of such gravity, that those who didn’t even know us fought to give us our futures. It is a hard gift to fathom. It is something we couldn’t understand on those gym floors, with our poppies proudly displayed so many years ago. We couldn’t understand sacrifice, many still don’t. It was something I only learned this past year.
We all know that a time will come for everyone, but when you fall in love with someone, all of a sudden life has no timelines. However, when you fall in love with a soldier, life and time are completely altered.  Within the first year or a lifelong relationship, I learned what true sacrifice is. Not only do the men and women who serve our country offer to pay the ultimate sacrifice, all who know and love them do too.
He hasn’t even deployed, or even graduated yet from the Royal Military College of Canada, but we’ve had those talks. Addressed the fears of not coming home and the greater fear, I’ve come to learn, of not coming home the same man or woman you left. When the time comes and he has to leave I’ll make the sacrifice and let him go. He’ll leave behind his family and friends, knowing full well there is always the potential of making the ultimate sacrifice.  The overwhelming emotion I and thousands of others will feel, will be no different than what so many have felt for hundreds of years. It is sacrifice.
We wear our poppies on November 11th to show we remember the sacrifice, that we are thankful and appreciate the sacrifice, and that we will honor our given freedom by achieving all we are meant to. November 11th marked the end of one war, yet many still rage on.
War is a part of our lives, an industry in our world and for the rest of our lives Canadians will take up the fight. Take the torch from failing hands, hold it high, and we keep faith with those who die by remembering the sacrifice, honoring them with free lives well lived, and wearing a poppy every November 11th.
When my mother was 12 she wrote the poem, “Why I Wear a Poppy.” It is now displayed in every Canadian Legion, as well as our family home. Remembrance Day has always been a part of my life. Remembrance Day will soon become every day of my life, just as it already has for thousands of Canadian families. So this November 11th, take a moment, pause for thought and prayer and take in the gravity of the gift we have been given.  For if that poppy wasn’t on your chest, you wouldn’t have grown from the innocent child on that hard gymnasium floor into the free person you are today.
Lest We Forget.