Remembrance: #WOTW

Remembrance display at a local school

The word remembrance may seem an obvious choice for Word of the Week this week, with Remembrance Sunday being this week. But through the week I've been pondering various thoughts that all fall within the topic of remembrance - 

My eldest son's school always holds a Remembrance assembly each year and whilst we've been aware of it happening, we've never thought anymore about it other than J coming home and reporting on how many kids fainted each year as the whole school squeezes into the hall for it and remains standing for the whole assembly. But this year the school sent an email to parents to explain the essence of the message that they will be sharing during Remembrance assembly which I found myself feeling impressed by - Impressed feels the wrong word but I felt proud of the school for what they were doing and the way they were approaching it.  

Essentially they emphasized that this is not about glorifying war. The school itself has experienced losses to war over the years with the house groups being named in honour of pupils that served and lost their lives in the first world war to losses more recently in the second Gulf War. Young men who are remembered by current teachers at the school. 

I also learnt something I did not know before about how the generals responsible for the signing of the Armistice liked the sound of the poetry in it if the Armistice came into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. So despite it actually being signed at 2am in the morning and the time it came into effect at 11am that day, over a thousand men lost their lives as the fighting continued. That is added to the nine millon military personnel who lost their lives in the first world war and the sixty to seventy million soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in the second world war. The numbers are almost too big to even begin to comprehend in my mind. 

They went on to explain that this is not something about remembering the past but that there are people within the school community who currently have family members on active tours of duty in conflict scenarios. 

That leads me onto sharing the poem that I find most poignant at this time of year: 

Why are they selling poppies, Mummy? Selling poppies in town today.

The poppies, child, are flowers of love. For the men who marched away.

But why have they chosen a poppy, Mummy? Why not a beautiful rose?

Because my child, men fought and died in the fields where the poppies grow.

But why are the poppies so red, Mummy? Why are the poppies so red?
Red is the colour of blood, my child. The blood that our soldiers shed.

The heart of the poppy is black, Mummy. Why does it have to be black?
Black, my child, is the symbol of grief. For the men who never came back.

But why, Mummy are you crying so? Your tears are giving you pain.
My tears are my fears for you my child. For the world is forgetting again.

Author unknown

It is that last sentence that brings tears to my eyes every time. Yes it is horrendous what has happened in the past. Yes as a nation we made a commitment to those who lost their lives to never forget with Remembrance Sunday. 

But we are forgetting because war continues out there. 

After feeling so deep in thought, it almost doesn't feel right to move onto another topic but the word 'Remembrance' has been in my mind this week for other reasons too...

How quickly we can forget... I found myself feeling irritated at buggies and pushchairs being in the way on the school run this week. I had to catch myself in thought and deliberately remind myself that I was that person not all that long ago when my own children were in pushchairs and more recently when T was using a wheelchair. 

We found ourselves avoiding the train carriage full of children the other day when heading up to Stylist Live and again I remembered that my kids have been the ones causing a disturbance in the past. 

I mention these examples only to remind myself how quick we can be to judge or feel hostile and how easy it is to forget that we too need someones kindness, compassion or understanding at times through our lives.

This week as I've continued to struggle with my back pain, I've also come to realise that our bodies also remember - Since my hip replacement in January, I've worked incredibly hard on my physiotherapy and hydrotherapy excercises in order to build up muscles that had not been properly used in 30 years. I've tried to gradually increase the range of movement in that hip in the hope that it will work independently of my back rather than the repeated strain and injury it keeps causing my back. And yet my body remembers. It remembers the pain of 1987 and how the arthritis literally crippled me, leaving me unable to walk or even move into a position where I could lie in bed at night (I spent around a year sleeping in an upright position on our sofa in the living room when I was 10 years old). 

My body remembers how I had to put pretty much all my weight through my right leg since then when standing. It remembers how I needed to spend as little time as possible putting the weight through my left foot when walking and so my steps were imbalanced. It remembers how my left leg became shorter than the right leg through both the damage caused to the hip joint and how my body distorted itself in order to compensate for the pain and discomfort felt through the left leg causing me to limp for 30 years. 

And now I'm faced with an ongoing daily battle to try to get my muscles, joint and ligaments to forget the pain and the bad habits it caused in the way I walk and sit and move. And whilst I had hoped that it would be a case of mind over matter, it turns out that actually when your hip has not physically been able to move in a certain way for such a long time, that it gets to a point that it physically cannot be made to do so. So I'm desperately seeking answers and ways to get myself beyond this. 

I don't want a new hip that leaves me no better off than the old hip. I don't want to have gone through that hideous surgery only to find it was for nothing. The back pain was the main reason I made the decision to have the hip replacement and the back pain is still there. 

Finally I want to finish on a more positive note. As my husband left with the kids for church this morning, he said to me to 'remember to do something I enjoy first' before tackling all the chores. So I chose to write this blog post. Because I enjoy blogging. And it is something that I'm gradually remembering how much I enjoy because over the past couple of years, blogging took a bit of a back seat as I found that I didn't make time for it in the busy-ness of life.  

I think that is a lesson we all can learn - to remember to make a little time for ourselves each day and ringfence some time for something we enjoy. Easier said than done - I know!

Raisie Bay – Word of the Week