Remembrance Day
Every year, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we take the time to remember all that those who fought in foreign lands gave for us. We remember the efforts of those Canadians who gave everything they have - even their very lives - so that we wouldn't have to. This November eleventh take two minutes' silence to think about those who stood up for us and what they went through, and about those who never even saw how their efforts turned out.
We wear the poppy as a reminder of the blood-red flower that bloomed on the field of battle in France and Belgium, and still thrive there today amidst the graves of the fallen.
In the spring of 1915, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields which is still recited today:
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.
- John McCrae
