My husband was born in North England, and lived there until he was about fifteen. This provides some truly interesting insight into cultural differences between America and its mother country- one of which is Veterans' Day.
This Tuesday, (November 11, 2014,) the two of us were driving to the Elementary School we both work at when Joe realized it was 11/11- Veterans Day. Cue my first confession: I never would have realized that. It was a fact that I never remembered throughout my childhood.
Joseph expressed his disappointment that we'd been unprepared for Veterans' Day, as he would have liked to wear a poppy pinned to his shirt to commemorate the occasion.
The poppies worn in England- and several other countries- on Veterans' Day (or Remembrance Day, as they call it,) is a small flower made of paper, with two round, red petals, a green leaf, and a little black pistil in the middle. I'd seen Joe wear one before, on other Remembrance Days, so I had an idea what they looked like, but had never worn one, or made an attempt to wear one, before.
A discussion ensued about the importance of history, awareness and keeping important dates and holidays alive. In Joseph's Primary (Elementary) school, Veterans Day was a day to remember, discuss, and honor those who had given their lives, or parts of their lives, to keep the peace we now enjoy. Two minutes of silence occurred school-wide at the eleventh hour, and this practice was repeated in churches and gatherings on Sunday a few days later. The children were taught the history behind the day, and paper poppies were available to buy for 10 pence, the proceeds of which went to charitable institutions in the surrounding area. I entered school that morning thoughtful but a little discouraged- obviously something needed to be done, but what could I do to help sow respect for Veterans' Day- and the veterans supposedly honored by it?
Upon entering the classroom, I discovered that the school had participated in a flag raising ceremony performed by a few Veterans from the 125th Transportation Company in Ogden. This boosted my spirits. Then, serving as a further boost, the class was lined up to join the other classes in the age group for a Question and Answer session with the Veterans. At the conclusion of said session, the teacher I work with handed me a stack of papers meant to be made into booklets to sort and cut- all about Veterans' Day. I read the pages as I cut, and found that a significant amount of this seven-page booklet, made for children, was brand-new information to me. The first sentence of the first page read, 'In 1918, on the 11th day of the 11th month in the 11th hour, World War 1 ended.' Even this was new. I wanted to resign and go home. That something this impactful was missing from my education, and I was in a position teaching children, appalled me.
But I prepared the booklets. While the kids were at recess, left in the hands of two other aids for the time being, I discussed with my teacher the poppies my husband wore in his school days, the poppies her daughter had made and sold as a project during high school, and other Veterans' Day moments from the past.
Somehow, ideas were formed. We scrounged through the closet and found red and black construction paper and green yarn, and I made a poppy from memory. When the kids returned from recess, we watched a video on Veterans' Day, (in which I learned as much as the kids,) while I put together a visual, step-by-step, easy poppy-making tutorial, and cut construction paper into squares for the kids. Thus, with the scraps from our closet, each child crafted him or herself a poppy and wore it for the rest of the day.
We made a list on the board of everyone the class knew who had served in some way. Each child wrote a thank you note to a veteran of their choice; cousins, uncles, dads, grandpas. One child touchingly wrote,
November 11th, 2014
Veterans Day
To Daddy: Thank you for your service, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
Below was drawn, by a child's loving hand, a man in camouflage holding a handful of colorful balloons.
At 11:00, the teacher called for attention and said, "We're going to take a minute of silence. I want you to think of your daddies and grandpas who served, and then think of the little boys and girls whose daddies and grandpas didn't come home. Can you imagine if your daddy went to war and didn't come home?" A glance around the classroom revealed an array of concerned, thoughtful faces. Not a single noise was made during the minute of silence, but eventually the activity did pick up again, though with a slight, almost intangible change of feeling. One young man, gluing his poppy together, stared at it for a long time, deep in thought, before saying to me, "Miss Jenica? I'm glad my grandpa came home."
It was a morning of deep growth for me. Seeing the children with poppies in their shirt buttons brought a swell of gratitude towards my Heavenly Father for His intervention in my day- and the day of my husband, as I was able to bring him a poppy for his shirt button, which spread a smile across his face unmatched by any of our discussion of the morning. I was grateful for the growth of the kids, and the learning they were able to achieve. I was grateful for the cards a bunch of veterans would receive upon seeing their children and grandchildren. I was grateful that Heavenly Father used me as a tool for good, and taught me incredible things in the process.
My reasons for writing this piece were many and scattered. I can't choose one point to make the main idea of my page, and I suppose that makes it unfinished and unprofessional. But one truth that brings to mind, collectively, every idea in my stressfully cluttered head is this: truth shows up. When an appeal for truth and light is put out to Heavenly Father's all-knowing sphere, with a matching intent to search for said truth, it will come. It cannot be stopped. An appeal for help, a quest for ideas, a plea for salvation- God will answer it. He gave me a gift yesterday that was painfully inconsequential in the face of the world today, but it changed my life. I entered the school with a soul yearning for a little respect and history, and left knowing, honoring and respecting an amount of people, and stories, and facts that I had not expected from a little school in America, or in all actuality, ever.
I guess what I'm trying to say isn't so much that God is amazing and answers prayers- which He is, and He does- but that God remembers. He remembers each and every Veteran who has ever fought in every war. He remembers every battle ever fought, whether in a foreign country surrounded by dying comrades, or on a bedroom floor, head in hands, in prayer. He remembers every child born and every question asked. He remembers you. And He remembers me.
I suppose that's what Veterans' Day has become for me- a day to remember. A day to be grateful. A day to commemorate every battle fought in every human soul. It's more than memorizing the date of the end of World War One- though I know it now, and I'm grateful. It's more than honoring veterans- though it is that, to its center. No, it is not those things alone- it delves deeper. It searches for humanity, and for a core inside each of us that points to our memories and our loves, points to our souls and says, 'Look... Do you remember?'
Jenica Burgan, November 12, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment