“And who 
are the lucky? The ones who survived? Or the ones that are no more? And who are the winners? And who are the losers? And what was it all for?” – Spirit Of A Nation, “Sometimes I Dream”
I have always had a hard time with Armistice Day. It tends to create a lot of conflict within my mind. I was taught how to react, how to respect, I was taught what to feel, and I suppose I did, because I was supposed to, but I didn’t understand it.
I was a toddler when my Grandmother started taking me to the Cenotaph for the ceremony. Looking back, I suppose my family knew a lot of veterans, my Gran herself lived through both wars, and the great depression, she went because she remembered when some of the names carved on that stone angel were more than names. I went because she said I had to. It was always cold and inevitably raining, the ground was slick and muddy under my pretty party shoes, and somehow I never did have gloves. I remember one year I had a fancy little faux fur muff, which made me feel very grown up, but did nothing to keep my hands warm. I was trained, raised, taught to respect the day, but I didn’t understand it.
At that age, the only person I knew who had died was my Grandpa, and I’d never known him while he was alive. Still I knew I had to think of someone, and he was the only person I could bring to mind, so I would stand there in the half-frozen, half-slick mud, with the rain dripping on me, asking God (or whomever was supposed to be listening) to take care of a man I had never – in life – met.
Now of course, I’m older. Now, I understand. Almost. I understand enough to know that I don’t want to understand any more.
Now that I’m older, the part of me that is still trained to mourn and respect, clashes with the part of me that grieves and is angry.
Because, like a child, I find myself constantly asking: why?
We go through all of this, and all of these people went through all this, all of those people died, and keep dying…for what? So that more people can kill each other just because someone somewhere doesn’t agree with something someone else says. Isn’t it supposed to be over by now? Shouldn’t we have GOTTEN it? I just keep thinking…why? Why don’t we get it? Why is this not yet a purely historical acknowledgement? Why is it still about now as much as it was about then? And why has war become common place? When did we forget how to care about it? When did we forget how to have a home front? How to live our lives knowing what was going on outside our own personal sphere of influence? When did it become so every-day that we have to be jolted to reality and reminded that it’s even going on? When did it stop being personal…when did they stop having faces?
How many people have to be slaughtered, how many names have to be carved into uncaring stone on how many monuments, before we understand that at the core? Beneath the religion and the petty politics and the hundreds of stupid things that we murder each other over…we are the same.
No matter how old I get, the same questions ring through my head every year. And no one, ever, seems to be able to give me the answers, at least not any answers that make any kind of sense.
I remember driving to UVic on Sept 11th screaming “THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN TO US!!!” thinking that this what all those people laid down their lives so long ago to stop…and here it was, happening anyway. Happening again.
I stopped going to the cenotaph when my Gran left the city and stopped going herself. Years later, when she passed away, there was an unspoken decision in my family that we just didn’t do the cenotaph anymore. We always stopped for the two minutes of silence, we always wore a poppy, but we didn’t don our Sunday best and stand in the rain anymore. There were a few years after that that I remember looking out the window and commenting that it wasn’t raining. For myself – I couldn’t bear to have all the unanswered “why’s” bubbling around in my head while I tried to focus on what I knew I should be focusing on. Though one year I begged my mother to take me, deep down I don’t think I ever wanted to go back.
But I operate in a world where my schedule is dictated by someone else, and there are some things that are not a choice when one is a member of the entertainment department. I took my time getting ready this morning. I rarely wear my ‘dress blues’ (which is not the official name, as I’m not an officer, but I’ve always thought of it either ‘dress blues’ or simply ‘the company issue’), preferring to keep to my own business wear in the evenings. But dress blues were a requirement for the officers this morning, and as close as possible was a requirement for the rest of us. So I tied the wrap dress into place, fixed my make-up, pinned back my hair, and double-pinned the poppy on my left lapel. When I left my cabin, I looked like I could have stepped out of the forties – not on purpose, but I think whoever designed the official evening uniform for the entertainment team had a fondness for the style of the 40s, because it has that look to it.
And I stood lining the entry way, with the rest of the team, and with 7 officers in full dress blues, and watched the ceremony.
I started crying when they sounded the ships bells for the start of the two minutes of silence, when the whole ship fell silent mid-whir like someone had turned off a switch, and I didn’t stop until the ceremony was complete. But one thing about the women in my family, somehow, we have the skill of crying with dignity when the situation demands it. Those of you who know me well, know that when I’m really heartbroken – I weep with no sound at all. I stood there, staring at the ground, gnawing at my lower lip, absolutely quiet.
It was the first Remembrance Day I’d sat through without my grandmother, without my mother, without anyone to hold my hand, and it’s still just as difficult to stand still for that long. But that isn’t why I cried…
I cried…because still…no one can tell me “why…”
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep
Though poppies blow in Flanders fields – John McCrae
It may be generals and ministers who blunder us into war Mrs Barum, but the least the rest of us can do is resist honoring the institution. – The Americanization of Emily