gimme shelter

I'm trying to muster the energy to write about something more interesting than how exhausted I am!!  that said, I am sitting on the couch - drinking coffee, watching csi reruns [I think 2005 is my favourite season!] and watching the boys play "army".  and in this moment, I feel compelled to explore the gratitude I am feeling.

taking a pause.

in the pause, remembering that I get to freely write anything I want, with whatever religious, gender based bias I choose, because someone sacrificed their life for this freedom.  we hosted a most amazing remembrance day ceremony at school yesterday and it forced me to a take a pause.  as I ate lunch with a father of one of our students, a master-corporal,  I took pause.  as I listened to the stories of another parent and the stories of students whose parents are still in afghanistan, I took pause.  I am grateful.  for those who fought in world wars, for those who fight now.  for those who came home and for those who don't.  for those who come home broken visibly and invisibly.  I am thankful.  

politically, I have mixed views on war, especially the kind that has occurred in my lifetime; and definitely mixed views on the government that makes all of these decisions.  but today that doesn't matter.  my family chose to come to canada because of the sacrifice that canadian soldiers made in the netherlands during ww2.  I have friends that have gone to war and come home, some broken, some not.  and I have students who are waiting for family to come home.  and for all of this sacrifice, I am grateful.  because it's closer to home than I think.