I must admit that in the past I haven’t put a lot of thought into Remembrance Day. \u00a0It was a day off, a day to relax, not much else. \u00a0I didn’t put a lot of thought into what this particular day symbolized. \u00a0War like Canadians experienced in the two world wars is so completely foreign to me that I don’t feel a strong connection to this day.<\/p>\n
This year has been different. \u00a0I just finished reading a book (finished it today actually) that is set with World War I as the backdrop. \u00a0It is set in Prince Edward Island, Canada. \u00a0The main character is a girl of 15 when the war starts. \u00a0The book follows her and her family as they are left behind while her brothers & friends go off to war in another part of the world. \u00a0It has been wonderful to read. \u00a0For the first time I’ve experienced (through a book anyways) what it was like to have to let your sons go, knowing you might never see them again, spending four long years hoping and dreading and having to continue on with daily life in the midst of this.<\/p>\n
I don’t know how they kept going on, how they could get anything done when they knew their brothers or their sons were fighting in some major battle and you didn’t know what was going to happen and they were thousands of miles away and there was nothing you could do but pray and feel helpless and afraid and dread answering the telephone and dread hearing news of the war. \u00a0I know what that ‘sick feeling in your stomach’ is like when you are dreading something so intensely. \u00a0But to think this was their life for four years?!?! \u00a0I can’t imagine it.<\/p>\n
But I’ve had a little taste. \u00a0And it was good for me. \u00a0Remembrance Day means more to me today. \u00a0I think I’ll try to do this every year around Remembrance Day: read a book or a story or watch a movie about war. \u00a0It will help put things into perspective for me when I don’t have a reference point to help me understand. \u00a0And maybe that’s the greatest legacy that generations before us leave behind. \u00a0That war is something so many of us in Canada know nothing about. \u00a0And we can live in peace.<\/p>\n
Peace to you this day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"