Writers and War

It is Remembrance Day in Canada. (Veteran’s Day for y’all Americans.)

Lest We Forget

As a Canadian, peace is one of the most important things in my life and something I value above all else.

To think… all the lives touched by war. All the lives lost. And for what? For freedom. For peace. For ideologies. War changes people, societies, cultures, landscapes and families.

How did I learn to fear war, to value peace? Some of was ingrained through socialization, yes. But it is deeper. I feel war. I empathize with those who have been touched by war. I put myself in the shoes of strangers who have lost their husbands. I feel the fear those soldiers must feel. How though? How do I feel it? How am I able to empathize?

Writers. Writers are part of why I am able to put myself in the shoes of a soldier, a mother, a child. It can be something simple like John McRae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ or it can be something disturbing like Timothy Findley’s ‘The Wars’ or even something light like Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows  look at life after war in ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.’ It can be disturbing artwork along with to-the-point words like in Pascal Croci’s graphic novel ‘Auschwitz,’ a diary like Anne Frank’s, or something more modern like ‘The Cellist of Sarajevo’ by Steven Galloway. All these different perspectives, focuses, people, life, and emotions all add up to someone who has never felt war, doing all she can to prevent it. To fear it.

John McCrae

I bow my head for a moment of silence to remember those who have fought for our freedom and to those who have taken up the struggle to write about war so that those who have never experienced it, can. Allow us to fear it and prevent it.