A wilting remembrance

With the fast approach of Remembrance Day, quite often the only thought pounding in many of our minds is the long weekend that is unavoidably linked with the national holiday. Better yet, more class time will be missed for the Remembrance Day assembly. How eventful can November get?!

At least that was the view I’ve always had toward Remembrance Day. I didn’t have any grandparents or relatives that fought in any wars. I didn’t understand the significance of the day (except for it being a holiday, of course). School assemblies… well, you know, the same thing every year: veterans enter the uncomfortably crowded gym — O Canada! — two more hours of mumbo jumbo about poppies — veterans leave — another half an hour of trying to squeeze out of the gym. Ok, maybe the assembly is a little too monotonous. Class is starting to look like a good idea.

Blame it on TV, social media; the educational curriculum – whatever comes to mind. Children these days are just too disconnected from the past. That’s what they all say. But are we, really? A quick Google and we can see the pictures from WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War – you name it. Or are we just too desensitized to the violence?

Our news and our media allow us to gorge on images of death while simultaneously keeping us warm, safe, and far away from them. We are sterilized,  zero-tolerance playgrounds where play is too violent, and Saw movies. With wide eyes we stare at the screen in bloodlust, but we cringe at having to squish an insect or kill a mouse. We cheer as UFC fighters pummel each other, but few of us have ever been in a real fight. [From “The only thing we have to fear…” by Wyatt Negrini, a writer of the McGill Daily at McGill University]

Just for a moment… forget where you are.

Ignore your flashing tabs, vibrating phone, and the solid reality of your chair.

I wish for you to follow the lapping ripples of the foaming ocean waves across the Atlantic, to the romantic world of Paris. Walk past the Parisian mother and her child, contently carrying their baguettes back to their elegant but cosy flat. Walk past the magnificent architecture of Versailles, the talking streets that interweave humbly through the heart of the city. Walk past all that. As you reach the shores of Normandy, you will feel a certain calmness. As far as you can see, there are flat plains, sandy beaches, and waves splashing through the sea breeze. As far as you can see, there is nothing but a quiet sense of tranquility.

A little less than a century ago, our Canadian troops landed upon these very beaches.

Perhaps their view of the beaches were quite different. Underneath the calmness lies preying eyes. The howling wind is blocking their senses. The foreign landscape conceals a malevolent monster. The attack is imminent! Shrapnels, yells, gunshots everywhere…

Without them, would World War II ever have ended the way it did? Would we have the freedom we have today? These are abstract questions perhaps no one has the answer to; even a speculation is futile. War is more than a little unpleasant: war is brutal, inhuman, barbaric – it is the harsh reality we are separated from. If we cannot appreciate the meaning of Remembrance Day through a personal connection, we can perhaps, at the very least, be grateful for what we have today.

With this, I’ll leave you with a poem:

Commemorating honoured veterans,

We pin on our blossoming remembrance;

Taking our places in the auditorium

Echoing with silence.

Once again evoked is our sentiment

As we sing

For the true patriot love.

On the Day of Remembrance,

We walked down the corridors,

The assembly within reach,

Though our footsteps weighed with fatigue,

Chipped helmets clattered,

Begrimed uniforms rustled,

Medals as bullets of reality, bombarding our fragile chests,

Eyes pained in the thick, hazy green-lit sea;

Hands bleeding poppy red,

We never forgot

To commemorate those who served.

At the set of the blood-stained sun,

We take off our crimson blooms –

The shields and the swords

In our combat;

Weaponry rained below:

Marking the end of struggle between past and present,

As, out of the unforgiving conflagration,

We carried the torch,

High

And afire.

Lest we forget.

featured image: source