If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.
There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed; a dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
a body of England’s breathing English air, washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away, a pulse in the eternal mind, no less
gives back the thoughts somewhere by England given;
her sights and sounds; dreams happy as the day;
and laughter, learnt of friends, and gentleness, in hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
Every Remembrance Day, I harken back to my visit to the Belgian battle fields and the cemeteries of Flander’s Fields. My life changed the day I visited those places.
I will never again look at a red poppy and think of anything but the sacrifice of the men and women who bravely serve their country, and of the families and loved ones they leave behind. That sacrifice is one so big, I can’t really understand it . . . but I am grateful.
And today and always, I remember.
Question: Will you be commemorating Remembrance Day (or Veterans Day) in any particular way? Daisy and I took part in a small but moving ceremony at the Olympic torch this morning. An older veteran passed the Canadian flag to a young veteran, of a more recent war, while simultaneously the cauldron was lit. This of course was all to harken back to the line In Flander’s Fields that reads “To you from failing hands we throw. The torch; be yours to hold it high . . .” It was a poignant reminder of the fact that even now there are members of the armed forces still serving far from home.
