Remembrance

I haven't been to a Remembrance Day ceremony in years. It's a strange thing how when one is a child, one (at least one did in my school district) attends a ceremony each, solemn with small children reciting "In Flanders Fields" (which I still remember from the year that it was my class' turn to recite, incidentally). And yet when one becomes an adult, there are far fewer opportunities to attend something similar. Over the years I've often watched it on television, but we don't own one now, and getting television coverage requires special plug ins for the lap top, not to mention a very dangerous home made antenna that would likely injure the child.

And then for the last few years, I've had a small child who would never remain silent and calm for the necessary amount of time for a ceremony.

It's a load of excuses, isn't it? It feels like it to me. I truly believe that we need to remember the sacrifices that people made so that we could live the lives we want to. I want to honour those who men and women who lived through those times, who believed the necessity of that they were doing, to thank them for living through that horrible time so that I wouldn't have to. So my child wouldn't have to.

As I sit writing this, my child is playing with a plastic syringe we have to make sure the cat swallows her pills (we fill it with water; don't worry, he's not playing with random feline medicines). He's shooting things, tells me he's shot his father's head off. I cringe. I asked him if he knew why we were home today. He said no. I told him that long ago there was a big war, and it was horrible, and many people died. And that we take today to remember what they did for us, and be thankful that they did, and to remember that war is dreadful and peace is achievable.

He's still shooting things.

And I feel like a bit of a failure. Especially today.

I guess it's too much to expect that at three he can understand the enormity of war, and the finality of death. That he can appreciate the unknown sacrifices of faceless people who came before him. It's a very abstract concept. He understands power and dominance and superheroes and fun. He doesn't know how the massive loss of lives in war and the superheroes he adores are related. He doesn't understand that when he kills an imaginary foe, in real life, people aren't just bad or good. No matter who you kill, it was still someone's son, someone's brother, someone's dad.

And I suppose that this is what parenting is about. A friend of mine once told me that there's no point celebrating a pregnancy. People get pregnant all the time. What's celebratory is raising that child to be a functioning member of society. A compassionate, kind, thinking, feeling, understanding, thankful human being.

So I have a few years to go in this process, and in the meantime, I can remember and observe the day how I see fit. Because the best way to ensure that he remembers is to remember it myself.