November 11/12

The Poppy.

Who knew that one little flower would cause such a fuss?

The red poppy has been a symbol of the dead on battlefields since the Napoleonic wars, as those hardy little flowers were one of the few flora that would grow in the devastated fields of battle in and around Flanders.  Then, in 1915, a Canadian doctor/soldier, John McCrea, wrote what would become the most iconic poem of its time, In Flanders Fields, which immortalized the red poppy as a symbol of the soldiers of war.  In 1918, the red poppy became the symbol it is today, a tribute to soldiers who had fallen in battle, and generations of children, including myself, grew up learning that poem by heart, and pinning the red felt poppies to our winter coats.

This year, I wore a white poppy.  It's not that I dare diminish the deaths of soldiers in combat; it's that I choose to stand for the kind of peace in the world that would end the overwhelmingly needless deaths of people in wars.  We honour and thank soldiers and veterans for their military service, for putting their lives at risk for the idea of our nations.  But the days are long past when the war dead were by and large soldiers; now, the war dead are infants and children, mothers, elders, black, white, brown, red, soldiers, storeowners...now the war dead and casualties around the world are largely civilians.

The white poppy honours everyone with a simple wish:

Peace...

...Wish you were here.