In a Sea of Yellow Ribbons

I have been struggling, writing, rewriting and scrapping posts on entitlement for weeks now.

The fact that military families seemed to have moved passed ‘gratitude’ to ‘expectation’ kept stewing in my head and my heart, and while it’s there it’s been doing what makes me the most annoyed…


 Making me take a good hard look at myself. 

 I wanted to write that I think maybe we need to apologise to the rest of the country. Stop with the hissy fits over who does or does not offer discounts. Stop the spoiled backlash about deals you didn’t qualify for or free items that you didn’t receive. Stop the ridiculous one-uppmanship and us-against-them attitude that seems to be seeping in against non-military families.

Stop the slow take-over of entitled attitudes from various sectors of the Military community are doing nothing but making the community as a whole look bad.

But instead I couldn’t seem to get my thoughts on paper, and so they sat and did nothing, like so many other useless blog posts that start as ideas that never become words.

And I’ve learned, when that happens, it’s because I was trying to write about other people instead of writing about myself.

Then this weekend came and went. Sunday was Remembrance Day. Hubby dressed all up in his DEU’s as he has done every year of his adult life that he has not been at war himself.

The kids and I pinned on our Poppies and drove with him to a cenotaph. There were bagpipes, there were wreaths. We sang O Canada and God Save the Queen. We stood for a moment of silence in Remembrance of those who gave all.

And then we left. For the first time, DH was…. on his own. There were no soldiers here he has served with that he could join to ‘reminice’. He came for lunch with the kids and I, and then for a coffee and treat before heading home. I admit it had been a difficult day for our family. What can be a hard
Service for all of us became harder when familiar faces weren’t there to
find. I guess we were feeling a little lost.

We passed stores with Support Our Troop decals on their doors, and cars with yellow ribbon stickers. We passed people with Poppies and we listened to the radio as they played their ‘Thank a Soldier’ recordings between songs.

And not one single time did anyone, anywhere we went, even hesitate a smile in the direction of my husband. 
All those outward displays of support and no actual physical real-life action. 
In fact, if anything we received awkward glances, the odd dirty look and a whole lot of pained indifference. At one point 2 kids came over to where we were sitting and stared shyly
at us until their parents realized where they were and in a loud whisper
called across the room in French ‘Get back here! Don’t talk to them!’.

 Now I know, I know, that this is not representative of the city we have moved to. At least, I choose to believe that. In fact, I am hoping that those parents just didn’t want their child to bother us.  I really am.  But by the time we made it home, even DH couldn’t help but mention that it seemed like people went out of their way not to notice him.

 This coming from a man who refuses to get Veteran Plates because, as him and his friend had put it ‘people stormed Normandy for those plates. I drove around the desert and occasionally shit blew up.’

He’s never asked to be noticed. Ever.

I spent a lot of Monday thinking about why I felt like I did when we got home Sunday afternoon.

What was I looking for? Was I hanging onto that same attitude of entitlement, expecting that people should treat us better simply by nature of DH’s job, his uniform or the medals on his chest?
Am I really so hypocritical? 

Then Monday evening DH came home from taking Freckles to MMA. 
And he casually mentioned that our son’s coach had walked over after the class, shook his hand and thanked him for his Service.  That he had asked him about his times overseas and the friends he had lost, and actually listened to his answers.  That even though it was crowded and busy, he had taken a moment and just said  – ‘I bet Remembrance Day is a hard one for you.  Thank you.’

And despite DH’s casual tone as he relayed the story, I could tell it had made a difference to him. 
A big one.

This brought me to realize something: 

Store discounts are nice and I don’t want to minimize the sentiment behind them or seem ingrateful for them, because we are certainly not entitled to them in any way and it’s always a gift when they are given.

But they are not what we needed and they wouldn’t have made a hard day easier for us.

Do you know what did?   
A smile and a handshake.

And I am so guilty. 
How many times have I used words, facebook posts and blog posts
*oooozing* with meaning, to substitute actual, physical, real life,
action?

Yellow ribbons, pink kitchen utensils and facebook reposts of youtube videos are nice, but probably not going to change the world.

But real life compassion will.

One smile and a handshake at a time.

 ________________

In what ways have you seen real compassion substituted with signs and ribbons?
What do you think?  

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