My dearests,
I have been thinking about Remembrance Day.
Dangerous, I know. Lady Spillington thinking generally results in either a strongly worded column or Lord Spillington quietly leaving the room.
But I have a question.
Could we have done it?
We are, after all, a generation that can become emotionally unhinged when the Wi-Fi goes down.
Our coffee is the wrong temperature. Our parcel took four days. Someone is driving 73 in an 80 zone and suddenly we are composing their obituary from behind the steering wheel.
We have become rather accustomed to comfort.
And then I look at the photographs.
Those faces.
We call them soldiers, which somehow makes them sound as though they arrived on earth fully grown, wearing uniforms and possessing extraordinary courage.
They didn’t.
Many were barely adults.
Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
Young men and women from little towns not unlike ours. They had mothers, sweethearts, brothers, and sisters. Jobs waiting. Plans being made. Lives barely begun.
And when the world asked something almost unimaginable of them, they went.
Were they frightened?
Of course they were.
Courage isn’t the absence of fear. Courage is being afraid and going anyway.
I wonder sometimes whether we truly understand what was handed to us.
We live ordinary lives because others were willing to do extraordinary things.
We open our shops, raise our children, worship God freely, complain about parking, and argue about absolutely ridiculous things on Facebook.
All beneath freedoms purchased at a price most of us have never been asked to pay.
So, on November 11th, people will gather at the cenotaph here in Mahone Bay, and at cenotaphs in communities across Nova Scotia and Canada.
And for a few minutes, perhaps we can simply be still.
No rushing.
No complaining.
No Lady Spillington carrying on about the state of civilization.
Just gratitude.
For the young faces in those old photographs.
For courage.
For sacrifice.
And above all, gratitude to God for the freedom and peace we have been entrusted with.
We often wonder what we would have done had we lived in their time.
Perhaps the better question is whether we are living lives worthy of what they did in theirs.
Remember them.