It’s almost Remembrance Day, and I’m slightly annoyed.
Excuse me while I grab my soapbox.
The Halloween sugar rush hadn’t even gotten up to full steam before I started seeing Christmas show up in the decor and on the shelves around town. What’s up with that? Remembrance Day has become the forgotten holiday, the little afterthought on the commercial calendar. I mean, it’s not even two weeks after the candy carnival, and there’s a full six weeks to brough-ha-ha over the mid-winter festival of your choice. Can’t we take a measly eleven days to focus on the lessons of history? To acknowledge the freedom we have to be over-the-top about pagan and religious observances? Maybe we don’t like to look death and war in the face. It’s not pleasant. But isn’t it important?
Okay, my soapbox is back under the bed. This week, after being inundated with leftover candy and resisting the premature onslaught of tinsel, I attended the pre-Remembrance Day ceremony held at my children’s school. I found myself appreciative of the respect shown there, but left wondering what I could do to more fully recognize the holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to add Remembrance Day to the list of commercialism casualties. But I wish I had a pot of Papaver rhoeas in my house right now.
They’re an agricultural weed in Europe, which is why they grew so readily on the graves of the dead in Flanders. Some enterprising soul could probably make a go at providing us live plants to complement our fake lapel pins, with the proceeds going to the Legion, or UNESCO, or something.
There are many poppies out there, and I enjoy my Iceland poppies (Papaver nudicaule) in the summer. But I’m wishing for a little shot of the red ones right now to offset the snow and help me remember Poppy Day. Maybe next year I’ll be thinking ahead and time it right to do it myself, but for now, I guess I’ll be content to pay my respects with a replica poppy, and all of my heart.
Originally posted November 10, 2012 on canadiangardening.com
aprildemes.com 
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