It's the 11th November and for almost 3 days now I've been vegging on the sofa feeling sorry for myself as I've got a touch of flu - aching bones, stiff neck, sore throat and zero energy. I will admit that feeling ill does tend to make me a little teary and emotional at the best of times but watching the BBC coverage of the service at the Cenotaph really sets me off: the sight of the three servicemen from the Great War struggling to lay wreaths - the oldest being 112 and the youngest 108 - and the reading of letters sent from husbands and sons to their loved ones sometimes written only hours before their far-too-early deaths.
More than making me upset, it makes me angry. Angry that I've sat here and watched the Jeremy Kyle show (please don't judge me...) with families arguing about poor parenting/bad choice of partners/revenge attacks on each other... i could go on and on. I've watch The Wright Stuff with the panel discussing whether bullied kids should walk away from confrontation or stand up for themselves, possibly putting themselves in harms way. These are things that are in the forefront of our 'culture' (and I use that term very loosely) right now and it makes me angry. Families have always bickered and kids have always got bullied no matter how far back in time you look but surely not to this extent? Why are we so intent in destroying everything nowadays? Destroying family units by saying such hurtful things to each other. Destroying our peers' self-confidence and state of mind just because they are short/fat/skinny/black/disabled/poor/rich etc etc.
We're commemorating the fallen men and women of The Great War, the 2nd World War and all the servicemen who have fought during my lifetime and are still fighting in the middle east every day and yet all around us there are people (young and old) who are blissfully ignorant to why people are even wearing poppies right now. There are young men (and unfortunately women) who are all too eager to resolve a trivial spat by whipping out a knife or using their fists.
Even those of us who do care are all guilty of moaning about what we don't have/can't have - I'm guilty myself. I've moaned about postponing our holiday next year because we need to see how the finances go what with the 'credit crunch' and all... we need to wake up and realise that people in recent times (ie: less than 100 years ago) had their food rationed, had husbands, sons, fathers going off to war and never seeing them again. Women brought up babies who had never seen their fathers on very limited resources. If there was even the opportunity of a holiday it would have probably been with a relative who lived by the see, not a fly-drive down the West-coast of America or 2 weeks in the Maldives!
We might not think so but we really need to wake up and realise how lucky we are. The world would have been a very different place without those people. Who knows what we would all be doing now, what we would be allowed to do now?
I've never been one for preaching or banging the 'love thy neighbour' drum, but I will say , whilst you don't have to like everyone you meet or agree with everyone else's opinion is it really too difficult to be a little more tolerant? To accept people for who they are, live and let live? Let's just worry about the big things and let the little things work themselves out.
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