By return guest Blogger, Michele Posehn, Sodexo Senior Recruiter
Among a field of wild red poppies swaying peacefully in the breeze, a Canadian doctor sat and composed one of the most beautiful, tragic, and inspiring poems I have ever read.
This doctor, John McCrae, had seen war before, but on that day in 1915, he was mourning the loss of a friend, a friend he could not save from the dangers of conflict and a friend he would later bury. He sat quietly near the area he used to dress the wounds of soldiers and surveyed his surroundings, mounds of freshly turned dirt peppered with the red flowers, their petals seeming to slow dance, always turning his glance back to the grave of his fallen friend.
His anguish was captured in 3 short stances, words that would describe sacrifice and give voice to those lost in battle, words that would turn into the poem “In Flanders Fields”.
Long before I majored in English in college, I knew poppies were the symbol of Memorial Day – I just didn’t know why. We would pull up to a red light somewhere or enter a grocery store and inevitably, around that time of year, the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the Disabled Veterans would be there with paper poppies for the adults to buy and Tootsie Rolls for the kids to chew on. Our poppy would be attached to our rear view mirror as we drove away and there it would stay until the following year.
I first read “In Flanders Fields” in high school. It was then I learned the significance of the flower and its correlation to Memorial Day. Poppy seeds will lie underground, dormant for many years and only bloom if they are disturbed somehow. And in 1915, in the midst of World War I, many graves were dug, thus leading to the fields being covered with unearthed poppy seeds and the rows and rows of flowers McCrae used as inspiration.
When I was in college, I met the man who ultimately became my husband. He was in the military, serving in the Navy, sailing off for months at a time to places like Kosovo and the Persian Gulf. Intellectually, I knew serving in the military was potentially dangerous but emotionally, couldn’t allow myself to constantly think of those possibilities without it bringing me to pieces. And then life changed when a ship overseas, during a routine refueling, was blown up killing 17 sailors while lining up to eat lunch…and then again on a clear blue day in September, when the once thought impenetrable walls of the Pentagon came crashing down. The danger of his chosen profession was staring me in the face.
Those were days when we had not been at war. Words like terrorism didn’t exist in our daily vernacular and suddenly, we stood at the threshold of a whole new world. They would have been ordinary days for us Americans had it not been for such devastation but for service members, it was the reality of their jobs; that a day in uniform was a day they were putting their lives on the line.
I think back to McCrae’s words, of how he gave voice to those gone and inspired those living to remember them with a poppy, born out of sorrow but a symbol of remembrance of the courageous acts and sacrifice service members make. While you are reading this, an 18 year old in Indiana is saying goodbye to her parents and heading to basic training. When you eat dinner with your family tomorrow, a Marine is carrying 50 pounds of gear on his back through a desert. And sadly, as you celebrate Memorial Day, a service member may have just lost his life. Yet just like the poppies, service members stand bravely against a blowing wind, knowing the peril they face, protecting those they will never know.
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
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Michele Posehn started with Sodexo as a Senior Recruiter in February 2007. She currently recruits for culinary related positions for the Hospitals division in the New York metro area. Michele welcomes anyone out there looking for a company that is diverse and full of opportunity to follow her on Twitter.
1 comments:
What a lovely tribute. I had forgotten about the poem and am so grateful to be reminded. You have an amazing and inspiring voice. Thanks.
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