I look forward to Remembrance Day. I began celebrating it in my elementary school's gym in my girl guide uniform watching Brian Adams videos about never forgetting. Red cardboard-paper poppies together formed a large wreath and we all sang, 'O Canada' really loud. I entered a Remembrance Day poem in grade 5, in the Royal Legion's annual contest and came in second.

In high school, a piper paraded into the gym with students who transformed into army, air and sea cadets. The choir sang remembrance songs, though I was always convinced they did it because they liked hearing themselves sing more than anything else. Regardless, when the grade 8 music teacher, in full foot guard patrol gear, played Last Post on the trumpet, I would allow quiet tears to sip down my pointy cheekbones and rest salty on the edge of my jawbone.

I graduated and began attending the Remembrance Day ceremony in downtown Ottawa, the biggest in the country. The Prime Minister and Governor General show up and aren't the main attraction. Groups of us huddle together with our warmest coats on, shifting our weight from foot to foot.

This year it rained, but I couldn't justify staying at home for my own comfort, watch it on TV. I'm pretty good at making up excuses, but not on a day like today. I mean, really, what outweighs the sacrifice millions made for the freedom for me to make this choice? I met up with my Dad and sister and, having assembled late, placed ourselves at the back of the crowd beside the war memorial. There was the recital of "In Flander's Fields", the playing of Taps and Last Post on the bugle. WWII planes flew past and the cannons were fired. I took off my hat when appropriate, looked down and closed my eyes to honour the dead of long ago and of recent who donned a uniform, left home, and never returned. Associations took turns putting wreaths beside the cenotaph and my sister was getting bored.

Then, with the bagpipes, begun the veterans parade. Around the circle of spectators, everyone had the chance to clap and thank the veterans as they filed passed us. That's what makes me cry. I see the veterans look at the crowd amazed at people clapping for them and they wipe a tear. And so do I. We clap well past when our hands become numb. We made our way with a small crowd to the tomb of the unknown soldier, buried on behalf of all those whose bodies stayed behind on the battlefield, unidentified. We took the poppies off of our soaked jackets and laid it on top of the tomb among the hundreds of others.

There was controversy last July, on Canada Day, when a journalist took picture of drunk people peeing on the war memorial. Today was a stark difference as people quietly wet looked up to the sky and down at the ground to remember the sacrifices of those perhaps more brave than ourselves.