Poppies

You might have wondered why the title "Poppies and Epiphanies"?

Poppies first:

This picture hangs in my kitchen!!

You might assume from our home that I have joined the current fashion for poppies... Poppy bed covers, cushions placemats and mugs etc but most of these have been gifts. Don't get me wrong, they were most welcome ones but my love of this simple wild flower began long before.

When I was in middle school; aged 15 or 16 maybe, I went on a school trip to Flanders fields in France as part of my GCSE history course. We viewed the monuments and famous battlefields associated with the World Wars fought there; including some of the enormous cemeteries. In these fields you can see the rows of identical white gravestones stretching before you, really emphasising the gravity of the loss of human life. However what struck me most was travelling on the coach we passed many smaller collections of, or indeed sometimes individual gravestones and the thought occurred and remained with me that for those people the sacrifice was no less great; only the fame. Each life lost was a tragedy and no one more important than another.

Poppies have long become the adopted symbol for remembrance of these events and for me they symbolise courage in the face of all life's toils. Not only this but as a flower I find them uniquely beautiful and the very fact that they are wild and can not be picked and presented in a vase seems to me to demonstrate that an individual life should be of the same nature: unique, free and above all not forced into change.

This is why in later months, with the onset of my illness, the beauty of poppies particularly have caught my attention. I feel that I, like so many, was not accepting of who I naturally am. Therefore I tried to change the elements which made me uniquely me; from my hair colour to my personality. This is not to say I believe one should not strive to improve but simply that that improvement should grow from oneself. Simply put: be who you are, live your life rather than someone elses.

As for the 'Epiphany' part... well a little self explanatory but I want to share with everyone the insight I have gained and I hope will continue to gain through my journey. In this way I intend to emulate my heroes Lance Armstrong and Melanie Reid just fractionally and confront my situation, allow others to learn how it can look and feel from the other side of the veil and maybe, just maybe make an impact, however small.....

Here starteth the lessons ;) LOL