Annoying things & small pleasures

Annoying things: 

• The neighbour two doors down must have gotten a dog/puppy... because over the past few weeks, it's been yelping/whining, on & off, sometimes for hours on end. (Dh has gone out into the hall and pinpointed the unit where the noise is coming from.) It's annoying as hell to have to listen to, and it also breaks my heart to think of that poor pup, who has probably been left all alone for hours on end. We are on the verge of sending a complaint to the property manager. 
• By contrast, our next door neighbour has two dogs (and works full time), and another neighbour a few doors down the hall has a new-ish puppy too. We hardly ever hear a peep from them. 
• The mall has been significantly busier, even on midweek mornings before noon, these past few weeks. (Already! Six weeks away from Christmas!) 
• Of course, the last timewe were there was last Tuesday, i.e., Remembrance Day -- a holiday for government  workers, if not everyone. 
• I was standing in the checkout line at Old Navy when the mall PA system asked for the traditional two minutes of silence, and began playing a recording of "The Last Post." (It was exactly 11 AM.)  I was pleasantly surprised when, within a few seconds, everyone in the store had stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads while the music played. 
• However, when the music stopped, everyone started talking and ringing up items again -- not realizing that they were supposed to remain silent for two full minutes. They were kind of startled when the closing bars of The Last Post began again, after the two minutes were up.  I guess they get points for the initial recognition of what to do, but...! Is two minutes of silence really too much to ask in these crazy times?? 
• House humidity has plunged since the temperatures started dropping. We started up the humidifier last week, and while it doesn't hurt, I'm not sure it makes a significant difference either. 
• I don't mind the chillier weather, but the relentlessly gloomy, grey, cloudy sky is already making my mood plunge. :(   
• Hopefully, things will perk up a bit once we put up the Christmas tree, later this month! 
• I've been referred (by my optometrist) back to the opthamologist who did the surgery on my right eye, three summers ago -- this time to check out my left eye, which may or may not be developing a similar problem. :( 
• Also annoying:  I couldn't get in to see her until early February. I really feel like I need new glasses (more surgery or not) -- the ones I have are 11 years old (!) and getting rather scratched up, so I think I'm due for a new pair, if only for aesthetic reasons! -- but I guess I'll have to wait at least a few months longer for those... 
• I also managed to put a noticeable scratch right in the centre of my the left lens of my computer/screen glasses recently (which, come to think of it, are about the same age as my regular ones!). :p  So I may need TWO new pairs... sigh... 
• Further annoying thing:  After I wrote this blurb, dh checked the mail and there was a letter from the opthamologist's office, confirming my appointment. For APRIL. The optometrist's office had called with the February date a couple of days ago. 
• I've left a message with the opthamologist's office, asking them to confirm the proper date. (Based on previous experience with this office, it may be a few days before I hear back from them.) Sigh... 
• (Before all this started, I was hoping I could have new glasses by Christmas or January at the latest... at this rate, Christmas 2026 might be more likely...!)  

Small pleasures: 

• Buying and (since Remembrance Day is over) wearing some new holiday PJ tops from Old Navy around the house. I don't often buy the coordinating PJ pants;  I mostly wear black yoga pants around the house. Somehow that feels a step up from pajamas!  (Am I deluding myself?  lol)  
• Starting to accumulate a pile of presents for both Little Great-Nephews' birthdays (one soon, one just before Christmas), as well as all three great-niblings for Christmas. 
• If you'd told me 20-25 years ago that I could not only enter a children's clothing store without wincing but also scour the racks with positive glee, I never would have believed you. 
• (I will admit, the sight of tiny pretty holiday dresses for little girls still has the power to sting. But for the most part, I enjoy myself!)  
• Meeting up with a childless friend (whom I first "met" online) for tea a few days ago :) at the coffee shop connected to a bookstore, about a half-hour's drive north of us (and about a half-hour's drive south from where she lives). Dh agreed to take me there, and browsed for books and presents for Little Great-Nephew #1's upcoming birthday while she and I chatted. 

#MicroblogMondays: Holiday

Today is one of those days where the U.S. has a holiday, and we here in Canada do not. We had our May long weekend last week (Victoria Day), and today it's the U.S.'s turn with Memorial Day. Remembrance Day on Nov. 11th here is a solemn occasion that serves the the same general purpose, I think. 

It can sometimes be annoying when our two countries' calendars are out of sync. When we were working, dh's job involved the U.S. financial markets, so he often had to work when I and most others had a day off  (like Victoria Day, last week, and Remembrance Day). Personally, when I was a kid, I loved it because, having American relatives, we got to celebrate Canada Day (although it was known as Dominion Day then) AND the Fourth of July (and we were often at my grandparents' house in Minnesota then), Thanksgiving in mid-October AND in late November. When we lived close enough, my mom would often take my sister & me out of school for a few days and drive south of the border to join our relatives for some turkey, visiting and card games. :)   

And coming from a Ukrainian background (on my dad's side) also meant we got two Christmases, as well as two Easters, although we weren't always around when everyone gathered to celebrate at my paternal grandparents' farm.  I also went to some kick-ass Ukrainian New Year socials ( = parties/dances) -- Malanka, in mid-January -- when I was in university, lol.  

It was the best of both worlds!  

In recent years, I find I'm enjoying our occasionally out-of-sync holiday calendar. (Retirement probably has something to do with it!)  I certainly wouldn't want to be celebrating most holidays (Christmas!) at a different time than my American friends and relatives -- and it does still make me feel somewhat out of sync when my usual TV shows and news hosts aren't on because of special holiday programming on the American channels. 

But I'm also enjoying the fact that, this weekend as well as last, the constant stream of emails flowing into my inbox and notifications popping up on my cellphone have slowed to a trickle. My social media feeds haven't been as busy either. I've caught up on reading my emails as well as the latest chapters of my Cromwell Trilogy slow readalong, finished one book and started another.  I even balanced my chequebook yesterday!  (lol)  

I'm enjoying it while it lasts...!  ;) 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

"The Great Silence" by Juliet Nicolson

I was trying to figure out what I wanted to read next, scanning both my e-reader and my bookshelves to see what would most grab my attention. I was still thinking about "The Great Influenza" (reviewed here) and the aftermath of World War I/the Great War, when I spotted a title that I bought in hardcover when it first came out in 2009 and (insert red-faced icon here) has languished unread on my bookshelves ever since then: "The Great Silence 1918-1920: Living in the Shadow of the Great War"  by Juliet Nicolson. 

This book will not be everyone's cup of tea, but the war, as well as its aftermath and its impact, is something that has long fascinated me. This is a period that was covered in "Downton Abbey," and in another recent read, "Mothering Sunday" (reviewed here) as well as "Into the Silence," which I read and reviewed back in 2013 (here). 

"The Great Silence" covers the first few years immediately after the war, and specifically focuses on the same day over three consecutive years -- (1) November 11, 1918, the day the armistice was signed and the war officially ended; (2) November 11, 1919, the first day of remembrance one year after the war ended, and the first time "the Great Silence" -- a nation-wide two minutes of silence at 11 a.m. -- was observed; and (3) November 11, 1920, when the permanent Cenotaph was unveiled by King George V in Whitehall, and the body of the Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey. (This was the last chapter of the book, and I will admit I had tears in my eyes as I read.)  

Personal stories -- from upper classes (including the Royal family) and servants, men and women, veterans and their families -- some names familiar, some not -- are recounted throughout. The stories of the many women who were widowed or left without men to marry (and, subsequently, left without children) are also touched upon. (This is the subject of another book that's in my reading pile, "Singled Out" by Virginia Nicholson.  I'll be honest -- I thought both books were by the same author -- Nicholson/Nicolson -- close!!)  There is an appendix at the end of the book where we find out a little about what happened to them. 

I found this book fascinating, and I learned a lot: about (to give just a few examples) the origin of the term "red light district" (!) and the inspiration behind D.H. Lawrence's scandalous novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (which I read when I was in my early 20s);  how the war led to advances in plastic surgery and prosthetics; the changing roles of women, including their entry into British government and political life; the rise of jazz music; the "Spanish" flu pandemic (of course); and so much more. There's a little of this and a little of that -- obviously, some of it more interesting than others. 

The grief and loss and turmoil of the war years and the years immediately after it eventually gave way to the Roaring 20s. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the years following our current turbulent times, including this most recent pandemic. 

4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #23 read to date in 2022 (and Book #1 finished in May), bringing me to 51% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books -- I'm now past the halfway mark! I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 8 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."  

Odds & ends

•  After two weeks of nothing... I'm spotting again. :(  I've been more active than my usual COVID couch potato mode -- washed the balcony door/windows, inside & out, on Monday; went to the bookstore, drugstore and children's wear store (shopping for Great-Nephew's birthday) on Tuesday; cleaned the oven this morning (while the weather is still nice enough to keep the balcony door open to let the fumes out) -- so that may have aggravated things. 16 days to my surgery/hysteroscopy/d&c!  
• Speaking of my surgery (and it IS considered surgery, albeit minor), I got the call from the gynecologist's office this morning with the details on timing, etc. (I knew the date but not the time, where to report, etc.)  And, oh yeah, surprise! (I guess I shouldn't really be surprised!) -- in addition to the pre-op bloodwork, I need to have a COVID test done, 48 hours in advance. Yay? 
• We were supposed to go to the dentist next week -- our first checkups/cleanings in nearly a year, postponed because of COVID-19 -- but dh persuaded me to postpone the appointments (again) until the new year. The COVID risk is (supposedly) minimal, since they have precautions in place, but I had to agree, I don't want to chance it. I want to get this procedure over with first.  
• I reeeaaaalllly, reeeaaaalllly hate to say this (and I have yet to broach the subject with dh), but I think we may have to skip Great-Nephew's first birthday celebration, for the same reason. :(  There's no big party planned, of course -- it would just be cake & coffee at BIL's house -- but the weather will NOT be conducive to an outdoor celebration by then! -- and BIL's house is not that large. Even if it's just the parents & grandparents plus us, that's 6 adults -- 8, if Younger Nephew & his wife are there (they're even more COVID-paranoid than we are!), 9 if Other Grandma comes, 10 if SIL's brother comes... you get the picture.  We will definitely go over with his presents that day, and maybe have a porch visit.  I guess we'll see what happens before making a final decision, but I'm not optimistic... :( 
• Manitoba, my home province, went into code red this week. So much for any hope of going home for Christmas (not that I had any by now). Among other restrictions, people are banned from socializing with others outside their household. I haven't talked to my sister yet, but I'm sure this means she won't be going to see my parents. :( 
• Andre Picard of the Globe & Mail, a well-respected health writer, had two blunt columns over the past week, one focused on the situation in Manitoba, and one on Alberta & Ontario, where restrictions were actually set to be loosened (again)(!). That's been cancelled, thankfully-- but frankly, the government has tightened and loosened restrictions so many times in so many different places, I have no idea what's open & what's closed where anymore. Is this any way to battle a pandemic? 
• Fun fact: the current premier of Manitoba is from the town where I lived as a teenager & graduated from high school. He's a few years older than me, so I never knew him personally, but I knew his sister, who was in Grade 12 when I was in Grade 10. 
• A record number of new cases here in Ontario today: 1,426.  :( 
• Today is Remembrance Day. I usually watch the ceremonies from the National War Memorial in Ottawa -- scaled down this year, because of COVID -- but the morning got away on me. I feel guilty. :(  I also feel guilty that this was the first year in a long, long time that I haven't bought a poppy to wear. But we haven't been anywhere that poppies were being sold, and for that matter, I really haven't been much of anywhere that my poppy could be seen either. :( 
• Stepped on the scale this morning. Not good. :(  Up again -- not by much, and not a whole lot since the beginning of the year -- but I wasn't starting from a great place either. I'm at my heaviest weight ever. :(  Too much inactivity. :(   Sigh. 

I still don't love November

The cold and the darkness still suck. 

Halloween was the preamble to what was coming. It was chilly, grey and pouring rain, so much so that the candle inside my jack o'lantern on the porch refused to stay lit, and I was getting wet just sticking my head & hands out the door to dole out candy to the handful of poor, brave (sugar-desperate??) trick or treaters who showed up on my front porch (our lowest turnout ever in 25 years in this house). 

And then suddenly, it was November. 

Within days, the time change plunged us into darkness well before suppertime -- and it's been gradually getting darker, earlier since then. And colder. By mid-month, the beautiful fall foliage that made this October such a delight had mostly vanished, leaving stark, bare branches against the dull grey sky. We started seeing snowflakes in the air, and woke up the morning of Nov. 17th to a thin blanket of white snow -- and we've had more since then (which has pretty much put the kibosh on our morning walks & given me a slight touch of cabin fever -- the first since I've been off work).  (Although I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about the white stuff, when Buffalo is just two hours & a bit down the road...!!) 

It's November -- and October's tragic & terrifying events in Ottawa and St. Jean-sur-Richelieu cast a dark shadow over my country. Two innocent men lost their lives for the simple reason that they were both soldiers -- and easily identified as such because they were in uniform (one of them was guarding the National War Memorial -- an unarmed ceremonial position). These events brought additional gravity to this year's Remembrance Day ceremonies.  

It's November, and my daughter -- who should have been celebrating her Sweet Sixteen this month, and getting her G1 (learner's driving permit), like one of her cousins in the extended family just did, to much congratulations on Facebook :( -- is long dead, having never drawn a breath. :(

It's November and, being Canadian, we've long since had our turkey and meditated on gratitude (that was back in mid-October)(and to be honest, I prefer that timing, versus having so many big things crammed into the space of less than a month -- Christmastime is already hectic enough as it is...!). But in recent years, we've begun to adopt U.S.-style Black Friday shopping promotions -- which I am not entirely sure is a good thing.

So November is still, unquestionably, my least favourite month.

But I must admit -- November HAS lost some (not all, but some) of its sting. Even before I turned the page on my calendar, I didn't find myself loathing and dreading November in quite the same way that I once did.

A big reason for that, of course, is that I am no longer working. November was always our busiest, most stressful time of year at work (i.e., year end).  When my job suddenly vanished, so too did my year-end work obligations -- and all the stress and exhaustion that went along with it.

In past Novembers, dh & I would be up at 5 a.m., and slog our way through weather that was often cold, wet and miserable to the commuter train station, where we'd stand shivering on the platform until our train arrived at 6:45 a.m., to deliver us to our offices before 8... and then repeat the whole process in the evening in reverse (and hope the cold and snow didn't lead to train delays and cancellations :p ).  These days, I'm generally not up before 7:30 (MUCH more civilized!). :)  And looking out the window of my cozy house last week at the blowing snow, a cup of tea in my hand (or listening to the wind howling outside tonight), I thought for the umpteenth time how thankful I was that I no longer had to worry about commuting. 

In past Novembers, Christmas shopping was something to be squeezed in during lunch hours (a little bit here, a little bit there...) and weekend visits to a packed mall -- or postponed altogether until December (when the pressure was really on...!).  This year, dh & I have already gotten a start on gift-buying. It's great to be able to shop at the mall early on a weekday afternoon when there are far fewer people around. (Although it's a bit jarring, since most of the people there at that hour are senior citizens -- I guess it's one way to feel younger by comparison...!) 

We've booked our flights west for a slightly-longer-than-usual holiday stay with my family -- no need to rush back, or to battle with co-workers over vacation approvals or work coverage. Between now & then, I fully intend to take advantage of my new freedom to enjoy some of the holiday events & activities that I never could find time for when I was working.

For example, I spent a day at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair a few weeks ago with a friend from out of town;  I'm planning to attend a gargantuan annual Christmas craft show with another friend;  and I'm hoping to drag -- errr, bring dh to the European-style Christmas market in the Distillery District -- something we've never had time to do before. And I already have a date pencilled in for the Christmas lunch that's become an annual tradition with a couple of my previously retired colleagues. Aside from the lunch (which I always enjoyed, albeit with one eye firmly on the clock, because I had to get back to the office...), this is all stuff that I would have been hard-pressed to do (there's only so much you can cram into already-packed weekends) in Decembers past.

So I still don't LOVE November. 

But (so far, anyway -- with less than a week to go)(knocking wood?) it's the best November that I've had for quite a long time.  :) 

Recent reading

So many great news articles... so little time. There have been a couple of really good ones lately, though, & I managed to flag some to share here later: 

First, I loved this Remembrance Day/Veterans Day article from the Washington Post about a group of bereaved mothers who take comfort in their weekly visits to the graves of their soldier children at Arlington National Cemetery, and the friendships they have made there. A very different kind of loss than mine (yours too, I imagine) -- and yet, there is a common thread that runs through all kinds of grief that makes it easy to empathize with these women. I understand the comfort they take from visiting the cemetery every week (dh & I still do), and how their grief has changed with the passage of time. And the friendships they have formed remind me so much of the friends I have made since losing Katie 25 years ago -- "in real life" through our support group, and through message boards & blogs. (Although we don't make a habit of meeting in cemeteries.) (I have seen some of them there by chance, though.)

I understood this:

Davis knows that her family and many of her friends think that she would be better off not visiting the cemetery every week.  

“It doesn’t make me sadder,” she says of her weekly visits. “On anniversaries and birthdays it can be sad. But this isn’t a sad place for me. It’s hard for them to understand.”

*** *** ***

From the New York Times, a rare visit to "the island of the dead" -- Hart Island, where more than one million New Yorkers have been buried in a potter's field since 1869 -- including thousands of stillborn babies. In fact, the article is seen largely through the eyes of Elaine Joseph, who has been searching for the body of her baby daughter for more than 30 years. There are strict rules governing visitors to the island;  however, the article suggests these policies may be changing.  Let's hope so.

In the not-so-distant past, it was common practice for hospitals to whisk away the bodies of stillborn infants to be buried in common unmarked graves. Even today, I still hear occasional stories of shell-shocked parents who agree to let the hospital "take care of things" for them, without realizing exactly what this means.

This article is difficult, yet fascinating reading. It reminded me of the Children's Garden at Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where the support group we attended holds its annual Walk to Remember every fall. I wrote about the garden, its origins and the walk here, back in 2008.

Beware the comments.

*** *** ***

The New York Times's Motherlode blog has been running a lot of posts lately related to infertility and pregnancy loss. 

Since earlier this summer, Amy Klein's Fertility Diary has been a weekly feature. Forty-something Amy has walked readers through her IVF cycle and the two-week wait, announced a pregnancy -- and then, sadly, a miscarriage -- addressed the "why not adopt?" question,  confessed to baby envy and had her husband take over for a week to answer questions about his experience.  This week's post is something some of us know well -- finding support on Internet message boards.

Sometimes Amy's posts can seem a bit disingenuous -- but overall, I enjoy them. I'm glad the New York Times is giving regular profile to this subject, and I am sure a lot of readers are getting an education in what infertility is really like.

Beware the comments -- some of them have been quite harsh (including ones from people who have dealt with infertility themselves). 

Yesterday, Jennifer Massoni Pardini addressed the difficult issue of finding out, 23 weeks into her pregnancy while living in Chile, that her unborn son had a life-threatening congenital heart defect, and the heartbreaking choice she was faced with making.

And today, main blogger K.J. Dell'Antonia finds herself unexpectedly telling her children about the sister they lost.

I was sad when the baby died. I am happy to have my daughter. I could not have had both... As adults, we take these contradictions, and we just sort of prop them up in the corner of our mind and look at them now and then, hoping that maybe another angle will give us some clarity.

*** *** ***

I don't always care for Leah McLaren's columns in the Globe & Mail, but I loved last Saturday's piece about the taboo topic of miscarriage.

When a wanted pregnancy ends, a world of desired possibility is destroyed. A doorway to an imagined future of laughter, music and silly dancing is slammed shut.  

These silent tragedies are around us everywhere; they are the blood stains on the discarded bath towels, and the pillowcases soaked with 3 a.m. tears. They are real and unacknowledged and, most important, they are absolutely not our fault. We need to believe this, and then we need to talk about it.

*** **** ***

And finally, the now-infamous New Yorker article by Ariel Levy (which McLaren references in her column), detailing the premature birth & death of her infant while she was on assignment in Mongolia (of all places). Melissa at Stirrup Queens wrote about this article here. (ETA: Andrew Sullivan at The Dish also has a thread about miscarriage, prompted by Levy's article.)

The writing is so beautiful, so honest, so relatable to anyone who has suffered pregnancy loss. The certainty that nothing could go wrong (so why NOT fly off to Mongolia when you're 19 weeks pregnant??), the denial, the disbelief when the realization sets in that something is going very, very wrong indeed.

I had been so lucky. Very little had ever truly gone wrong for me before that night on the bathroom floor.

And this, near the end:

But the truth is, the ten or twenty minutes I was somebody’s mother were black magic. There is no adventure I would trade them for; there is no place I would rather have seen.

Me either.

11-11-11

(Who couldn't resist posting today, just to use that cool headline?)

Today is Remembrance Day, of course -- the day that fighting ceased in World War I, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. I have the day off work (yay!) -- nothing special planned. A little cleaning & organizing, maybe; a lot of reading and blog hopping. ; )

I'm thinking about the veterans today, of course -- but I'm also thinking about a friend from first-year university (30+ years ago now, eeek), a neighbour who lived two doors over in my dorm. Her birthday was November 11th, & the number 11 loomed large in her life. She'd look at the clock and the time would invariably be 11 minutes after the hour, for example. It freaked her out.

She was bright and funny and sassy and friendly -- but she was horribly homesick for most of that year. She had a boyfriend back home (whose photos papered half her room) and an adorable baby niece (the other half). He came to visit her (nice guy), & she positively glowed while she was around him. Part-way through the year, they agreed they should try dating other people. She did, but it was obvious her heart wasn't in it. That summer, she called my roommate & told her she was back together with her boyfriend & wasn't coming back in the fall. She was going to live at home & attend the smaller, local university.

Sadly, it wasn't too long before we'd lost touch with her. (Back then, it was harder to keep tabs on people -- long distance was expensive, e-mail and Facebook were still decades away, so if you weren't a good letter writer -- good luck!) But I still think about her, and my old roommate & I still talk about her sometimes when we get together. I've tried Googling her a few times, and haven't found much -- her name is a fairly common one. But I recently tried her old boyfriend's name, & found a lot more -- including their names listed together as a couple in a relative's recent obituary ("survived by..."). So they did get married, & I'm hoping they are living happily ever after. : )

Here's to you, K. I think of you whenever I look at my watch or a clock & it's 11 minutes past the hour.

What do Iraq war veterans and bereaved moms have in common?

I've read so many great articles lately where I keep thinking, "I should blog about this." And then the paper gets thrown out & I can't remember which paper it was in, etc.

Fortunately, I did make note of this one. The New York Times has a great blog called Home Fires: American Veterans on the Post-War Life, which features personal stories from Iraq war veterans. A recent entry described the challenges faced by soldiers who are re-adjusting to the civilian world. After it was published, the blog received many comments from Vietnam war vets, describing their own returns to civilian life. Some of these were highlighted in a separate blog entry, titled Coming Home Again.

On the surface, these men have nothing or very little in common with me & my readers (infertility, pregnancy loss). But reading some of their comments, I was struck once again by the "transferrability of trauma," & how much we have in common with others who have been through a traumatic experience, even though the circumstances of those experiences may be very different.

Here are a few of the quotes I could most relate to from Coming Home Again. (You'll probably see why when you read them.):

To Brian Turner, all I can say is that four decades since the year that lanced through my life, I’ve never really talked about it to anyone. I don’t recommend that. What you are doing is good. It is not that we “get over” things like this or “find ourselves” again. It is more that out of the shards and bits and broken pieces — those museum uniforms isolated behind glass — something new is fused, grown. We become what we were but so much other and hopefully more, the more having the insight of the “sailor home from the sea.”

Yeah, it would have been nice if we’d have come back as a unit and someone had walked up and said, “Welcome home” and “Do you want some coffee?” Almost
makes me cry.

— Posted by Robert S

These days I work with trauma survivors who have P.T.S.D. If they are military veterans, Blackwater cast-offs, rape victims, or clergy abuse survivors, they all have the same P.T.S.D.... Rituals help us heal from our P.T.S.D. trauma, regardless of how we got it. Native American rituals and traditional rituals help nourish and heal the soul.

Best advice to help someone with P.T.S.D.: If they talk to you about their experiences, just shut up and listen without judgment. Don’t interrupt and tell them about your own sorrows or you know someone like that. It may be the one time they are able to talk about it and heal. Don’t shut it off. Second piece of advice: sustained prayer.

— Posted by John Zemler

I felt as if I had snuck back into the U.S. from Vietnam in ‘71. My family was proud of me, but they tiptoed around a lot of questions... in a casual conversation with an Air Force colonel, he asked if I had ever served in the armed forces. I said yes, and he did the mental math and asked if I had been to Vietnam. When I said “yes” he just said “thank you.” That was the first and only time anyone had ever said that to me. I cried...

I think the Bush-era ban on returning ceremonies for soldiers killed in action bordered on criminal neglect. The British publicly honor every fallen soldier returning home. I suspect they do a better job of honoring all of their soldiers. I wish America would too.

— Posted by Robert Easton

*** *** ***

I left in that last pargraph, even though it doesn't really relate to the rest of the post, because it reminded me of the repatriation ceremonies that take place at a Canadian air force base, about an hour down the road from where I live. Each time a Canadian soldier is killed in Afghanistan -- and there have been more than 130 since the Afghan mission began in 2002 -- his or her body is flown to this base, where there is a "repatriation ceremony." The body is then carried in a convoy down Highway 401 to the coroner's office in Toronto, after which it is released to the family for burial. (Initially, the Conservative government -- taking their cue from the Bush government, no doubt -- wanted to ban news media from the ceremonies. They backed down after a bereaved father voiced his objections.)

Canadians are not generally a flag-waving people. But something amazing began to happen. Members of the public began lining the fence at the base to show their support for the soldiers' families. And people from communities along the 401 began to gather on the highway overpasses, bearing Canadian flags, and paying their respects as the procession passed by. Parents with young children. Veterans in dress uniforms and firefighters standing atop fire trucks, saluting.

Nobody told these people they should do this. It was entirely a grassroots thing -- one group joined by another and then another. Eventually, a newspaper photographer noticed what was happening and took some photos. (Last year on Veteran's/Remembrance Day, NBC News even ran a piece on the phenomenon.) Today, hundreds of people might be standing on & around a single highway overpass; thousands along the route -- which, since 2007, has been officially renamed "The Highway of Heroes."

I'm usually at work when these ceremonies have taken place, so I have not personally witnessed a procession. But it does travel past my community en route into the city, and I have seen the photos and television footage.

Just thinking about it -- or writing about it, as I am now -- brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat.

Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada and, since it's a bank holiday, I have the day off (although dh does not). I slept in & have been puttering around the house all day, doing a bit of this & a bit of that, not quite accomplishing much, or anything that I thought I would, but enjoying the day that is all too quickly flying by, nevertheless.

When I was growing up on the Prairies, in the late 1960s & 1970s, Remembrance Day was a solemn occasion. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was closed (although I believe this is not the case any more). Stores could be fined for selling anything more than bread & milk. I believe we had the day off school, but with everything closed & the weather usually bad, there was nothing much to do except stay at home and maybe watch TV. Of course, we only had access to one television channel (the CBC) until I was 14, & most of the day would be devoted to Remembrance Day programming, including the broadcast of the ceremonies in Ottawa at 11 a.m., with endless war documentaries to follow in the afternoon.

The day before, we would have an assembly at school, with readings & sometimes skits. Then there would be the traditional two-minute silence, during which someone would inevitably burst into giggles, only to become the object of a withering glare from the nearest teacher.

As a teenager who played alto saxophone in the school band, I would often be obliged to attend and perform at the services at the local cenotaph, or war memorial. Every small town of any size in Canada has such a memorial, usually made of granite or marble, on which are inscribed the names of local soldiers who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars -- and sadly, there are many. (I can never hear "Abide With Me" without flashing back to frozen fingers & lips on metal keys & mouthpieces.)

When I moved to southern Ontario, I was shocked to find out that all the stores were open (although banks and other federally regulated institutions were closed). I could go SHOPPING on Remembrance Day!! And I have done so -- although never quite without guilt. I've also spent the day baking cookies, scrapbooking and at the spa.

But whenever I'm at home on Remembrance Day -- as I am today -- I pause to watch the service from the National War Memorial in Ottawa on CBC, as I always do whenever I'm at home. I am not aware that the United States marks Remembrance Day in quite the same way as the Commonwealth countries do. One of my high school girlfriends' husbands served in Afghanistan (early in the conflict) as part of a UN mission, & noted that the poppy was not something the Americans he met on the base were familiar with. This Wikipedia piece describes the ceremony & the significance of the poppy quite well.

You really have to see it to appreciate it, however, & although it has been many years since I attended a cenotaph service, I would love to attend the one in Ottawa some day. (I have been to Ottawa, & the National War Memorial is truly awe-inspiring.) The sight of the old soldiers saluting and then, after the ceremony, marching down Wellington Street; the bagpiper's lament, the trumpeting of the Last Post, the reading of the Act of Remembrance and the children's choir singing "In Flanders Fields" (the only poem committed to memory in my school days that I can still recite by heart -- dh challenged me to do so this weekend, & was impressed!!) all move me to tears.

Although I am hearing laments that fewer people are wearing poppies these days, I still see lots of them around. Right around Halloween, old soldiers & others from the Royal Canadian Legion appear in the underground concourse linking the office towers of downtown Toronto, selling poppies for whatever donation you care to make, with proceeds going to various veterans' causes. Seeing them brings a lump to my throat & I always feel a wave of guilt, although I can never quite explain why. No politician or official would dare to appear in public, or on Canadian television in early November, without wearing a poppy on his or her lapel.

The only problem with the poppies is that they never stay put. Yesterday, venturing into the city, I made sure I had my poppy firmly fastened to the lapel of my jacket as the train pulled into Union Station. Ten minutes later, I noticed it was gone. Bought another one from one of the concourse vendors, went to a cafe for a latte & croissant, & as soon as I left the restaurant, it was gone too. (I gave up after that & am spending Remembrance Day guiltily poppyless.)

Remembrance Day has had a slightly different meaning for me these past 10 years. November 14th was Katie's original due date, and although the due date kept getting changed as the pregnancy progressed (and finally ended in August), the 14th has always been the date that stuck in my head. It's never held quite the same significance or pain for me that August 5th & 7th do, but it's still a landmark date. I always try to imagine the birthday parties that probably would have been held this weekend.

Remembrance Day 1998, though, was still pretty painful. The 14th was on a Saturday that year, but I remember being at home on Nov. 11th that year, treating it like my own personal day of Katie Remembrance. Going through all her things again, posting to the new friends I'd made on my e-mail list. I've never quite been able to bring myself to ask for the 14th off work -- coming as it does so soon after the 11th, & at our busiest time of year -- so the 11th to me is also a day of personal remembrance. I watched an interview with this year's Silver Cross Mother on TV this morning, and while our losses are so very different, I feel a bond of understanding at a deep level, of what it's like to live with grief.

They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.