In Canada, we call Nov. 11 "Remembrance Day".
Remembrance Day in Canada is a Very Big Deal. There will be services of remembrance in communities across the country, always starting at eleven o'clock. There will be flags, solemn speeches, solemn music, prayers, and laying of wreaths. A bugle will play, there will be two minutes of silence ... two full minutes, not just "a moment of silence" ... and some will shed tears.
One of our traditions is to wear little red poppies sold by the Royal Canadian Legion. One year PubCon happened to include Nov. 11, and it was a meaningful thing for Canadians in the crowd to spot each other wearing poppies. It was a planned act, not an impulse; they'd have had to bring their poppies from home when they packed.
Every Canadian school child knows this poem, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
We remember.
