So this blog is a complete departure from arts, crafts and laughter.
So I feel I should apologise for that, shouldn't I ?
First of all I should explain where my line of thought has come from, and most importantly why.
Did you watch Gareth Malone's Invictus Choir (1st episode - I did watch both). I hadn't planned to if I'm going to be totally honest about this. It was on, so I watched it.
At about 2 minutes 10 seconds in Gareth Malone made a one hell of a statement. Whilst standing in front of a memorial to fallen service men. He pointed out that "we are good at doing this". I sat up and thought 'blimey' he's right.
Firstly, I'd like to share my wonderful memories of my gentle, kind and careing Grandad. One morning a year, I would go just with him up to Trafalger Square and walk around until we found a good spot and there we would stay as the service of rememberance would come towards the Cenetaph and that somewhat eery and emotional minutes silence. We would watch the royal family pay their solemn respects and thanks. Every single year he would always say "I never see anyone I was out there with", and I would wonder too where they were. It's my most special of memories and still hugely important to me.
So Gareth was right, we were good, very, very good at remembering our fallen. Oddly this programme I was now totally into wasn't about the fallen, but the living!
Then on Facebook something popped up that I had completely missed.
My lovely bride Nicola who had got married at the RAF club at the beginning of April (I have featured her wedding previously) pointed out that at the memorial that Gareth had made his thought provoking comment sat a beautiful display of red roses. That arrangement was from the their wedding that they had placed on the memorial the following morning.
I cant really explain how proud I felt. I knew of course she had done this, because she had told me at the time. But there it was on tv and I did indeed feel proud.
So, I sat watching remarkable men and women with the whole spectrum of injuries, both mental and physical and marvelled at their words and their attitude.
The blind boxer who said "you don't need sight to have vision".
Prince Harry, so honestly and passionately wanted to give something back to his military family. People who on the whole just desperately needed to feel a sense of worth again. That sense of worth they had in their military family.
The next day I talked to the small person about it. I wondered what her take would be on it.
I should explain that as a mum I am not the sort that shies away from any curious question your average six year old throws at you!. Because such important people had died before her arrival, I have always talked about them. Kept their memories alive. She knew about Grandad Albert, that I would go up to London with him to the remeberance service, to remember people, just like him who had faught for their country, her country, and sadly had died and not come home.
We had gone up to the 70th memorial concert at horseguards parade with my gorgous cousin and her husband and Mindy had loved every second of it. She fell in love with Alexander Armstrong and is know to burst into many a wartime song.
My gorgeous girl and her husband
All of this was fine, BUT what about the people that went out to fight for their country and did indeed come home.
They came home broken.
They came home lost, no longer the person they were when they went out.
No longer able to be apart of the military family that was so important to them.
Did we celebrate their sacrifice? No we didn't.
Did we explain to our children that these people, just like Grandad Albert, went out and served their country but came back having given their all and were now simply broken?
Did we show them pictures?
Did we have memorials to them?
Did we wear a symbolic flower to remember these people?
Amazingly, I didn't think we did.
The next day over dinner I casually talked about the Invictus games, about people who did come back and that maybe we should watch it. she was quiet exited.
I showed her the flowers at the memorial and she was of course impressed, because mummy had made them. The first thing to watch was of course the Obamas video to Prince Harry with boom soon become the tag line for everything she said.
Can I have a drink mum, boom.
I'm sure you are getting the picture. How clever to come up with something that made people laugh, whilst bringing such a serious subject to the publics attention. By now the wheels of the invictus games where rolling - and so where the questions!
So, where is his foot then?
I like them funny legs, can I have one. Where are his eyes then?
What's a land mine?
I answered as honestly as I could. She seemed totally unfaised by it all. It was sad apparently, but they did come back so that was a good thing. The innocence of childhood is so honest.
It had made me think.
What do we do?
As I sit each night watching the invictus games, I do wonder what the world is thinking .
I do hope that maybe someone will think its important to celebrate more often these brave people.
Maybe we should explain to our children more, about what these extraudinary people do for us.
We should, but of course I wonder if we will.
As for Nicola and Alexis, I wish you a wonderful life together, and pray you stay safe wherever life takes you - and thank you to you and all military families.
To watch the first episode of Gareths Invictus Choir click here. http://bbc.in/1SQ3aTk
To watch invites games day one: http://bbc.in/1rMiYfn
Invites Games : https://invictusgamesfoundation.org/
