Remembrance day always swoops in on me, surprising me when it arrives, and each year it is a hustle to bundle the kids up and get them outside. This year, we head to the town centre to support the memories of our veterans.

And each year, I am reminded how little remembering we do in the previous months.

As we bundled up our kids, telling them we were heading to the town for Remembrance day, my son asked “What is that?”

He had missed the school ceremony because he was sick, and as a kindy kid hasn’t had a tonne of exposure to this event.  In fact, he probably doesn’t even remember the exposure he DID have last year.

And so, we talk.

We talk about his grandma’s dad who flew planes in the war. And from there we talk about “war” itself (secretly grateful that he doesn’t know the word)

And then we talk about his grandfathers dad, who was a scuba diver and a veteran of the “other side”

And we talk about our friends who we saw last year, and how we know them because of their dad flew with his Great Grandpa.

And then they remember.  The remember the real faces and people who are a part of our present because of our past.  They can understand what their Grandparents are doing as they travel through Europe right now, visiting extended relatives in Belgium, and seeing the house my dad lived in in Hamburg when the war was over, and before he immigrated.

By creating the conversation, we are reminding them of their roots, and how all of those tendrils come together every day and create their future.

By creating conversation, we show them that lives can change, that wrapped up in our heritage are risk takers, and change makers. That the decisions of our grandparents, have led us to where we are today.

And I feel that that small seed gets planted every time we have this conversation, and that small seed is the one that will grow to remind them that they too will make decisions that affect their the lives of their families, and become the foundation for stories to be told to their grandchildren.

Because that is our power, and the opportunity we have to inspire, by sharing our stories of the past, so that they might plant the seeds of the future.

And so, today I am reminded to make this conversation more than an annual thing, and to to be surprised when November 11th rushes up on me. Today I am reminded to tell stories, and share our history as a part of our daily, weekly, monthly narrative, not as a holiday special.