Remembrance Day

This day is very important to me, I don't like to call it a holiday because that seems festive,and Remembrance Day is a solemn day to me.

I really do stop and remember, I think about the men that went off to war in WW1 and WW2 also about there family's. Can you imagine not seeing your spouse for 5 plus years, having very little contact except for the odd letter. I think about all the children in England that were evacuated, my Nan's sister and brother were evacuated to the country. I don't know how the parent's did that, putting faith in a stranger to raise your children.

I am amazed at how something that happened so long ago still affects the people that lived through it. My Canadian Nan hates the airshow that happens here every year, I thought it was because she was to picky about the noise. I found out that it was because the noise reminded her of the war and the RAF training camp in Fort McLeod. She had 3 brothers off fighting and lived in fear for there lives. Every year that airshow takes her right back to being a little girl and how she felt during that time.

My English Nan had a brother who was in a German POW camp for 2 years. Yet she remembers the war with colorful stories. She used to sit on the garden shed roof and watch the dog fights in the air, or the time a bomb fell so close it collapsed the ceiling of the house onto my Dad's crib. Or having sing along while spending the night in a shelter. I think maybe because they were in the east end of London and felt the worst of the battle of Brittan, they all rallied together and made the best of it.

Its not just the wars of years ago that I stop to think about, I think of all my friends that are in or have been to Iraq or Afghanistan. I think of my friends whose husbands are there right now. I don't care what people think of the current wars. I believe that the men and woman that go deserve our full support and respect. You can support the troops without supporting the war. I feel selfish that I am so relived that Jim got out when he did. When we were first married I worried about being apart for 6 weeks, that seems so trivial now, at least I knew he would come home.

Anyway I'm babbling on just please remember tomorrow to show the respect the our veterans deserve and have a minute of silence at 11:00 and think about all we have to be grateful of because of them.