Forever, we remember

Those who died in battlefields found their glory and immortality in their death. They left behind families who lost their sons, brothers, husbands and nations full of people who take their hats off at the mention of their names.
The stars and the medals, once glistered on their shoulders became heirlooms, to be taken out and polished once a year; to remind ourselves the fact that they treaded on this earth, to die knowing that their sacrifice spared our lives.
The calendar is full of days that mark or commemorate people and incidents that changed the tide of the history of the mankind. For a country like ours that had been searing in the ugly flames of a thirty-year-old war against terrorism the Poppy Day is not only to remember those who died in the World War I, but to recall and honour those who laid their lives at a stake so as to let you and I breathe and walk freely on this ground we call-the motherland.
Wearing a poppy flower so close to your heart for one day does not make you a real
patriot. As the redness of the flower symbolizes the streams of blood that seeped through war fields, we are in debt to each drop of blood they shed and each bit of grit they had, to take bullets on the chest and ribs.
Perhaps, they did it out of love or out of honour. If their difficult call was to die, then the call of their families were even more difficult ; to live to see their sons, brothers and husbands die, worse still go missing, and live forever with their memories.
Calendar days are good to remind things we keep forgetting. If they had forgotten their duty, at least for a wee bit, you and I may not even be living.
The mothers who still expect their sons to cross their thresholds, the wives who yearn for the affection of their husbands, the sisters who dream to disappear in the embrace of their brothers, the lovers who die for their beloveds’ kisses and the sons and daughters who had never seen their fathers keep enlivening the legacy of those who now lie sleeping peacefully under the stars. Peace for them is when they are being taken care of, supported and guided until they come to terms with their pathos and loss. For everyone of us, this is the call of the hour and the call of the honour and love.