I started this post on November 12th 2017. And, here I am continuing writing on remembrance five years later just days after this year’s remembrance day. For years, I have attended Remembrance services, and worn a poppy to support the appeal. The first remembrance service I attended at Bishop Latimer’s was so moving that I cried during the service and it evoked a higher sense of reverence for remembrance.
During my first year in the UK, I saw people wearing poppies, and I did not know why they were wearing them. It was my then University teammates who told me about remembrance and I attended the University remembrance activities for that year. Fast forward a few years, and it was my turn to teach kids and young adults about remembrance. During my Brum days, with the local Church, I enjoyed talking to kids about remembrance, painted, printed poppies, cut them out, and made badges out of them to wear on the special Sunday service.
With the local Church, we had a community garden. One summer, we were given a packet of poppy seeds. I planted them on my raised bed space allocated to me. It was written on the packet that it will be mixed wild seeds attracting bees. As if on cue, the poppies were in full bloom from late September all the way until November. It was lovely to wear natural poppy flowers for the Sunday service that year. We also gathered enough to prepare the altar and the wreath with poppies.
‘Lest we forget,’ – these words are etched on to whoever knows about remembrance. The two-minute silence, the music and the prayers are almost surreal that when I close my eyes, I can see poppy fields and flowers on end. One thing that remembrance has taught me is this. We should not take anything for granted. All that I have today is because of someone else’s sacrifices and nobler acts. The freedom that I have today is because somebody else gave up their yesterdays for me and my tomorrows.
My grandfather was in the Indian Army. He retired from the Army and I have heard my father talk about how their childhood was, where they studied in the North of India, and how even their eating habits were influenced by their life in those places. They came home every year for a vacation and back in Kerala, they had a fabulous time after a 3 to 5 days train journey. They could even talk in almost 4 languages and they preferred talking in Hindi among his siblings and parents. I was very young to remember his (my grandfather’s) share of Army stories but he was proud of how he had done service for his country and we all took pride in us. Even years after he died, I never really understood the importance of his acts until the service organisers asked me to put names down for the service. The names could be of anyone who’d been in service (Army, Navy, Air Force), in war (either served or died) or families of whoever suffered from being in either. I didn’t have to think twice to put my grandfather’s name down. When I heard his name called out among many in the service, I felt, proud, sad and happy all at the same time.
And I told myself, ‘Remember!’
Remember the good days and the bad, the happy days and the sad ones.
Remember the whys, whens, and the hows
Remember the highs and the lows.
We have made it till today and will get there day by day
Lest we forget…
¬RoshniSoulsearches¬ 