I Remember

I dropped a toonie into the plastic bucket and pulled out a poppy. A toonie! It seemed inadequate. I wear a poppy every year. And every year I remember.
Sunday was Remembrance day. There was a computer poll that day which asked ; “How important is wearing a poppy to you?” 97% of the respondents reported that it was very important. I have to ask where was every one's poppy?
A few weeks ago, I started “poppy watching”. I noticed that in the first few days of November, I saw the poppy in place on many of the seniors I came across. I take the C-Train to work everyday. On the train is mostly students heading off to U. of C. In my initial assessment, I was impressed by the number of students wearing the poppies. I say wearing loosely because I saw them on backpacks, hats, scarves, pockets, purses, and even on an i-pod. As the week wore on closer to Remembrance Day, I saw less poppies on my university train buddies. Lost or fallen. Not to be replaced. Maybe not even aware they no longer had the poppy. The poppy was lost !
I know that these kids are more aware of Remembrance day than the generation before. They are seeing the sacrifice that their brothers, freinds, and relatives are making in Canada's “non war” in Afghanistan. Even if they don't know them personally, they can't help but relate to the media's sound bytes on the death of the newest soldiers.
As I continued my poppy watching, I noticed that my generation (not too old, not too young) had a dismal showing in the poppy. I am not sure why my very informal survey showed this.
I know where mine was. I know why I wear my poppy on the left side over my heart. I do it to honor my father who fought in the second world war as an infantry man. My father did what countless others did at that time. They trudged off to war to defend our country.
This is the time of year that I think most about my dad. I think of him as a young invincible man of 21 years of age. Did he really know what lie ahead of him. I think not. Yet without question he and countless others went overseas. AND slowly their invincibility was pounded out of their every fibre of living as they watched their buddies and comrades shot to bits before their very eyes.
My father like so many other veterans never spoke about the war. I remember asking dad to tell me about his experiences. What I got was an erie quiet that shouted volumes. What I saw was the eyes of a man whose soul was tortured. The vacant cold and yet sad stare that only ice blue eyes could project. The children of veterans know this look. It is the look of the horror and the atrocities that have been pushed deep down into their gut. It is that war that they wage against themselves to put behind them every memory and every loss they ever experienced.
Now my dad is gone. I still remember his personal sacrifices for me, my family and our country. I remember his sad eyes. I remember his shattered youth taken from him. I remember seeing him cry for the first time in my life as he watched the Remembrance Day ceremony on TV. He cried for the friends he watched die before his very own eyes. He cried. I cried.
Every year in pubic school we had an assembly. We memorized and spoke this poem:

IN Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce hear amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, saw dawn, felt sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up your quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

By Doctor Major John McCrae of the 1st Field Artillery Brigade. He wrote this poem on May 3, 1915 after the battle of Ypres, Belgium, the area generally called Flanders. It was there , during the Second Battle of Ypres, that some of the fiercest fighting of the first World War took place. Working from a dressing station on the banks of Yser Canal, dressing hundreds of wounded soldiers from wave after wave of relentless enemy attack, he observed how “we are weary in body and wearier in mind. The general impression in my mind is of a nightmare.”
In May 1915, on the day following the death of fellow soldier Lt. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, John McCrae wrote his now famous work, an expression of his anguish over the loss of his friend and reflection of his surroundings – wild Poppies growing amid simple wooden crosses marking makeshift graves, written in 20 minutes, captured and exact description of the sights and sounds of the area around him.
Lieutenant-Colenel John McCrae left Ypres with these memorable few lines scrawled on a scrap of paper. His words were a poem which started, “in Flanders Fields, the poppies blow...” Little did he know then that these 15 lines would become enshrined in the innermost thoughts and hearts of all soldiers who hear them. Through his words, the scarlet Poppy quickly became the symbol for soldiers who died in battle.
His poem speaks of Flanders fields, but the subject is universal- the fear of the dead that they will be forgotten, that their death will have been in vain.. Remembrance, as symbolized by the Poppy, is our eternal answer which belies that fear.
Sadly, Lieutenant-Colenel John McCrae died of pneumonia at Wimeriux, Franc on 28 January, 1918. He was 45 years old.

This history was supplied by the Royal Canadian Legion.

In Loving Memory of dad and all who fight our foes.
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