the candid files

I made it through another week. It’s Saturday night, I’m almost de-stressed from last week.

I have to confess, I didn’t observe a minute of silence this morning. I think I was being silent at 11am, but that’s only because I was writing thank you cards. I feel kind of ashamed, and yet I have to analyze my shame and wonder, why is this?

War today is so much different than the wars we remember most on November 11. Identity is so shattered – half of the people in the country might be generally in favour of the war or at least Canada’s peace-keeping mission, although not really crazy about it. Then there’s another almost half that’s vehemently opposed – and then there’s a small fragment of population who are actually supportive.

Last week my friend came up to me because she’d lost her poppy and thought I might have seen it. I said that no, I didn’t – I had an extra one though, which she adopted. The thing is, if you don’t have a poppy in November, you feel guilty. Why is that? I’m a Christian and I don’t have a fish on my car. I’m totally supportive of breast cancer research and yet I don’t have a pink ribbon anywhere. I don’t really care about either of those things at all. But even though I hardly know a single veteran and I am inclined to think that about 99% of the wars in this world are a senseless waste of human life, but I feel really guilty if I’m not wearing a poppy.

Is it all a big bunch of peer pressure, or one of the few icons of conscience left in this country?