11/11/2025
Last night so many of us shone our boots. Here is to those who cannot. Lest we forget.
Tonight I watch him shine his boots.
Did you know they are actually shoes? I don't know when that happened. They make a clicking sound when he walks. But boots has a nicer ring to it.
He wasnt supposed to be home, it has changed so many times this past couple weeks. But he is here.
So tonight he shines his boots.
We are tired. Tired because of daylight savings. Tired because we are 44. Tired because it feels like the world is on fire. Tired because it has been over 20 years since that first Remembrance Day when it felt like the sand was still stuck his skin and everything felt different.
It won't be the first time he is tired while he shines these boots. Or the last.
Tomorrow we will leave early and arrive early because he is here. If he wasn't I'd go to the same spot but probably just a bit late. We will see the same friends my kids know as family. We will pass around beer and fireball. They'll tell the stories that get a little better each time I hear them.
They'll brush the snow and leaves of his gravestone and they'll leave a drink and their poppies with him when they go.
He won't care if anyone has shiny boots.
But tonight he shines them anyways.
Time has changed us all. Dh is one one of very few of them still in uniform. Some will wear their medals on their jacket. Some just can't bring themselves to find the medals this year.
Those in a good place will use this time to get eyes on those who aren't. Who is who changes over the years. Not everyone who came home from the desert survived the war.
So tonight he will shine his boots.
And tomorrow, you might go to work. Or stay home and watch Netflix. Or sleep in. Or get groceries. As is your fought for right.
Some of you might stand in front of a cenotaph and do your best to understand and show respect. Thats the best any of us can do. That is why I am there.
Thinking of all the calls that said "I'm okay. But my friend... he is coming home."
And the relief and grief that brings.
Because some of you out there tomorrow, you will miss the ones you love.
You are who I think of while his heart hurts and mine breaks and he shines boots that are already shiny and medals and commendations he wishes were never pinned on his chest if it brought them home.
His head is a million miles away. What seems like a million years ago and also yesterday. In the desert with the ones he misses.
Like many are and have been since wars have been fought, they are the ones who bear the memories for us.
They don't need Remembrance Day. That is their every day.
Even all these years later.
Remembrance Day is for the rest of us.
So tomorrow I will stand in the cold next to a gravestone and I will remember.
Maybe where you are, you will too.
But even if you don't.
Tonight, I watch him shine his boots.
