Perspective

I was poppy'd out this morning. The sea of lost lives at the Tower, re-visiting my own family connection to the Great War, the moving silence at church yesterday, watching the replay of the ceremony at the Cenotaph, then seeing Countryfile and hearing how some of the presenters' ancestors had fought and died in the most terrible of conditions, was sobering and solemn. I needed lightening up.

In town for a little shopping, I took a short cut through the churchyard where the town's War Memorial is. The steps were covered with poppy wreaths and bunches of flowers, messages and names of those being remembered.
I saw this name. A local man who gave his life in Afghanistan in 2009, aged just twenty-one.
Six months after he died, my daughter had celebrated her own twenty-first birthday, and five more birthdays since then.
Puts it all in perspective.

Truly, lest we forget.