Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day saw me attending our local memorial service for those who have died in service to our country.

Death is the operative word that came to my mind.  I have had the death of a brother, father and most recently wife attend my daily path.  These I remembered yesterday.  Included in my yesterday was also a video of a widower struggling to start a new relationship.

To say that people do not follow you even in death is to say that you do not care.  I’m not saying that they are living in the sense of having a person next to me.

No, I’m reminded that a person has placed hints of themselves in my thinking, in the way I react, even in the emotions that they generate within me.  I am thankful for Jill, with whom I shared 35 years of marriage.  From her comes a sense of perseverance, rightness, justice, equality, compassion, mercy, grace, forgiveness . . . the list continues on.

In the Remembrance Day service the emphasis is on the freedom that was won by death.  As we consider those who have been examples and models to us, and who have died, we also receive freedom.  Freedom to change into that which is best and noble.

And perhaps the greatest death, that of Jesus, provides the greatest freedom won by his death.  Freedom to change into his likeness, having been forgiven of the barriers and obstructions and fights and battles that kept me from being like him.

Lest we forget, we remember!