Lest We Forget

I hope some of you got to the Remembrance Day ceremony in your community.  We went here in Port Moody and it was well attended (the crowds seem to get bigger every year) and it is comforting to hear the same words and see the same veterans and listen to the magnificent Simon Fraser Pipe Band every year on the 11th of November.  There is always an old cannon that they shoot off twenty one times and although I think it has a powerful message about the horror of war (I always imagine young men, like my own father in World War 2,  having to climb out of their trenches and run into a noise and an earth-shaking impact like that), but of course, our poor girl, Daisy, is very frightened of loud noises and I worry about her.

My sister tells me that the ceremony in Toronto, where she lives, is very militaristic and so she doesn't go until after it's over.  She likes to have a bit of time to think about our father and what happened to him, and of course, about all the other fathers, and sons, and grandfathers, and people who served in all the wars over all of human history.  I know that some people wear a white poppy because they feel that the red poppy has become militarized.  The white poppy is primarily a symbol of peace and is worn to remember all people who died as a result of war, not just members of the military.  But I think the red poppy serves me in the exact same way.  I wear it as an acknowledgement of history, as a remembrance of what happened in war, not just the wars that Canada was a part of but all the wars that stained the earth over and over again with young people's blood.  I think the phrase "lest we forget" goes with the red poppy -- if we forget what happened, if we deny the past, we might not be able to move forward and learn from our mistakes and make progress as human beings and as a collective.

I guess I can't really write at the end of this week and not mention what happened in the United States earlier this week.  I confess, I find it very troubling that a person who appears to pander to the lowest fears and animosities in people has been chosen to lead a very powerful country, and I'm worried about what will happen in the next four years. I heard that one of Trump's first initiatives is to "end the war on coal" and to remove the regulations implemented by the Obama administration to limit the use of coal.  Coal is a very dirty fuel, and most people agree we need to seek out other forms of energy and leave coal behind.  But Donald Trump doesn't believe in climate change and that is scary (and apparently does not reflect what most Americans believe).  But there is very little we can do here in Canada to manage the direction the United States decides to go.  We need to have faith that people of good will are going to be able to win out in the end and then we need to be people of good will ourselves!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone.