Remembrance Day

posted at 9:26 pm
on Nov. 11, 2006

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I’ll be honest.  I didn’t have much to say about Remembrance Day.  Reposting a picture of a red blossom, or reprinting that touching poem that doesn’t really rhyme. I’m not saying it’s not important to do—I’m saying others already did it, and better than I would have.

But then today, two people I care about had people in their lives die, and they shared their stories.

One of the deceased was very old.  The other was not so old.  One went quickly, the other slowly.  But both of them, it seems, lived good lives, and faced their deaths, and made their peace.  And it reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to say.

I get teased sometimes about being a Boy Scout.  About having been one, I guess I mean, though I still feel like I am a Boy Scout, because a lot of what I learned then stays with me still.

One thing that stayed with me is the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared.”  You hear this most often these days when someone forgets to bring a cork screw with them, or needs some crazy glue, or forgets their health card or some other fiddly bit of material stuff.  “Be Prepared,” the public service ads on T.V. say, with an earthquake kit in your car or by checking your smoke detectors twice a year and on and on.

But that’s not what “Be Prepared” means.

“Be Prepared” means something far more important, a life lesson far more core than what I have in my pockets.  “Be Prepared,” means be prepared to live a good life, ready to weather the twists and turns of fate that can see you wealthy and heathy one day, and otherwise the next.

“Be Prepared” to stand up for what’s right.  Be honorable.  Know when to sacrifice and pitch in.

“Be Prepared” as you walk out your front door not just to fix a broken shoelace, but to fix a rift in a relationship.  Be prepared to reach out, to make a difference when it’s needed the most.  Don’t drift through life, because there might come a sudden situation that makes you wish you were standing firm and steady, able to reach out to someone floating past you.

“Be Prepared,” in its starkest terms, actually means “Be prepared to die.”  Live your life fully, not recklessly, and don’t leave things undone when they need doing.  Enjoy your current situation, while still striving to improve it.

I didn’t come up with this myself, of course.  Baden Powell, the founder of Scouts, wrote a note that was found among his effects in his desk after he passed away.  It was his final message to the youth he led.  In it, he said:

I bring this up on Remembrance Day, because I think that we often get caught up in the day-to-day.  We don’t always look up as we walk through life.  Thanks to the sacrifices of many who did prepare—who looked ahead and saw what needed to be done—we have that luxury.

Because of what veterans and current soldiers have they’ve done in Canada’s name, and because of what they were prepared to give up, I don’t have to be prepared each day in the same way that someone living Darfur, Chechnya, Thailand, Afghanistan or Lebanon. But I still think about it, and on a day like today, we all should.

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