at the going down of the sun.

The things I remember about Remembrance Day aren't probably the things that I should remember. More than anything I remember feeling supremely sad each November. There was always an assembly at school, the recitation of Ode of Remembrance and In Flanders Fields, the minute of silence that seemed to stretch into awkward, uncomfortable hours. One year someone projected a close-up drawing of a young World War II soldier on the screen behind the podium, and I stared at it till I almost felt haunted by it. (I was an intense child, I'm not denying that.)  Shuffling back to our classrooms we didn't speak to each other. There was a sober, sombre, entirely uncharacteristic quiet about the rest of the day at school, a guilt about being alive and cared for.  

As I got older, I grew jaded by the idea of Remembrance of any kind. By highschool I had declared myself a pacifist and was unmoved by sentimentality. Instead of an assembly, the minute of silence now took place in the classroom. An embarrassingly off-key group of drama students sang One Tin Soldier a capella and I sneered my superior contempt. (I was also, I think, an intense and somewhat unlikable teenager.) Secretly, though, I still re-read the war novels I'd loved as a child: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, the War Guest trilogy by Kit Pearson, The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig. I was fascinated and horrified by the idea of living through war. I pretended not to pay attention to the veterans who would visit our history class, secretly hanging on every word of their incredible stories. My paternal grandparents were married only days before my grampa was called up for training; my maternal grandfather's boat sank in the English Channel and he survived on a life raft for days before being rescued. It was these human details that seemed the hardest to bear. It began, of course, with the realization that if either of them had not survived, I would not even exist. But it didn't take long to extrapolate from the ego to the bigger picture, of so many lives lived and lost and altered forever, with very little to celebrate in the larger world.

Years later I lived in Ottawa, where the whole city closes down on November 11th. Every year I'd vow to take advantage of the holiday, to go down to the Cenotaph and pay my respects. Every year I'd do something regrettable the night before and completely miss the boat. Instead I'd sit in my apartment and listen to the service on the radio, the real thing only blocks from my front door, the weird sensation of hearing the flyover jets pass by overhead moments before I heard them on the radio. The closest I ever got to a public act of remembrance was getting up to no good at the Peacekeeping Memorial before wandering around the National Art Gallery all afternoon. But still. There's something about living in the capital, something about all that commemoration and pomp and circumstance, that makes you feel close to your collective national history. It makes you feel like you're a part of some larger story. You're aware that you owe something to all those who came before you. It makes you want to take care of people.

These days I still listen to the national service on the radio, when I can. My dad drives up to Barrie every year to take my grandfather to the local memorial. A few years ago they interviewed Grampa for a piece in the local paper on living through World War II. When the article was published he clipped it and kept it in his apartment.  Today I stopped by to visit my dad while I was out running errands, and we talked about the poppies we wear (I having recently bought my fourth of the year from a perfectly kindly gentleman at Canadian Tire), about whether it's a commemoration of war, a glorification of violence, or a tribute to the many men and women who have served this country. I don't necessarily condone any kind of military action, and I'm still a pacifist above all else, but I sure do understand the idea of service, of listening to what you think is your highest calling, of doing what you believe is the right thing. And I understand the need to donate money to support veterans, military families, communities for whom tremendous risk and loss are daily realities. Remembrance Day still does evoke some profound sadness in me, but it's become a hopeful thing, too. A hope for peace and grace, a promise to continue to tell these stories, however hard it may be.