Remembrance

Perhaps my current obsession with poppies is timely. In the language of flowers, the poppy represents remembrance and this past weekend was one filled with remembrance, collectively and individually.  And poppies, particularly the red, have been used as a symbols in remembering those who have fallen in war. The bloom was beautifully memorialized in John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields, a poem I can never get through without choking up.

I did not realize that until just now, sitting down on Monday morning, Sept. 12th, that my playful obsession of last week was, as I wrote, so timely. A day late? Not really. The act of remembrance should not be saved for a particular day, for an anniversary or a planned celebration. And remembrance is not a singular, passing thought. When we live our lives as we know we should, we remember. When we live our lives as our loved ones who we have lost would be proud of, we remember. When we lend out a helping hand and comfort those who suffer now as we have suffered in the past, we remember. And when we stop and appreciate all the little things, all the beauty in the world, we remember.