Gardening: Poppies a symbol of sacrifice and healing
Candace Barone
We honor loss by finding the joy and beauty in people, places and things that surround us. Our culture ideology identifies that sacrificial loss is perpetually intertwined with the beauty in flowers. And while the outward expression has evolved from personal letters and calls to text messages with emojis, we still offer flowers in support.
This may explain why so many of our rituals and holidays are connected to floral history. Memorial Day is near and takes no exception to the affirmation of flowers and healing.
Sometime between the years of 1915-1917, World War I Canadian Lt. Col John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields, a poem of grief from the war zone. A surgeon in the 1st Brigade Artillery, he treated injured soldiers in a region between western Belgium and northern France. The battlefield left behind immensely disturbed land that was ripe for limited plant activity. As the buried and remains of falle