Remembrance Day

The following story is purely fictional but was inspired by the
sight of poppy sellers in the High Street and a remark made at church
choir practise about the previous year's service.

Julie-Anne surveyed herself in her mum's long mirror. She was beautiful
in her prettiest dress, brand new shoes bought especially for church
and her hair neatly twisted into a blond French plait. She shivered in
anticipation and ran downstairs to put on her coat ready for the car
journey. She had not been a member of the church choir for long - just
a few weeks - but lots of people had said how lovely it was to see her
there and how they hoped more children would start to come to church.
The vicar, too, had spent lots of time talking to her, asking her about
her cat, thanking her for coming and making her feel really really
special.

It was to be the Remembrance Day service. The choir would be sitting
high up instead of on the benches at the back of the church. They were
going on a special parade out of the church and up the hill to the war
memorial. The vicar had talked about all of the important people who
would be there - the mayor and someone called local dignatris.
Julie-Anne knew what Remembrance Day was all about: her grandma had
told her. She knew that granddad had been in the war, in Africa, and
that he never wanted to go abroad again. She knew that today they were
going to remember all of his friends who had died out there and raise
lots of money for the injured survivors.

Inside the church the choir leader helped Julie-Anne into her robe and
told her to stay close behind her during the parade; but the service
was long and there were not many hymns nor anything special for the
choir to sing. Julie-Anne found herself day-dreaming about her dolls
and her cat, Princess, and had to be prodded to attention when it was
time for the parade. She carefully followed the leader until they were
in a semi-circle in front of the war memorial. First was the vicar,
then the mayor, then local dignatris who seemed to be three people, and
then the choir and then those members of the congregation who had
chosen to brave the November rain and driving wind. The vicar was
talking about the wreaths and piles of crosses in front of him, but the
wind took his words away and Julie-Anne was not sure what was
happening. She would just follow the leader and everything would be all
right.

The vicar laid a huge wreath of red flowers at the foot of the memorial
followed by local dignatris one, two and three. The choir leader
approached the crosses picked one up and laid it at the foot of the
memorial before walking on. Julie-Anne followed. She picked up a cross,
walked to the memorial and laid it down; but the flowers already there
were so beautiful that she had to pick up each wreath and look at them,
one by one. God was so clever to make such lovely things.

"Move along, move along," Julie-Anne heard the vicar's voice.

"Just one more flower to look at," she thought then I'll go.

"Move along, Julie-Anne, NOW PLEASE," and this time she got up and
looked for the leader, but the leader was nowhere in sight.

The vicar had sounded so cross that Julie-Anne decided that she had
better go somewhere so she continued to walk up the hill. She soon
realised that she must have got this wrong: the next in line ran after
her and took her hand to lead her back in the right direction. As they
passed the war memorial, Julie-Anne heard the vicar saying something to
the mayor and local dignatris about children being kept away from
services. The truth suddenly dawned in her head: she was often the only
child in church because all the others had been naughty and done things
wrong: they weren't allowed to go anymore and now it looked like she
would be asked to leave, too.

The rest of the service passed in silent misery. Julie-Anne was
dreading leaving the church: she would have to go past the vicar and
say goodbye and then he would tell her never to bother coming back. She
got out of her robe in silence, and stood quietly with mum at the end
of the queue waiting to leave the church. At last it was their turn.
The vicar's smile left his face when he saw Julie-Anne so as quickly as
she could she said

"I'm very sorry. I really, really didn't mean to make Jesus cross.
Please may I come again?"

A shadow crossed the vicar's face and then his smile returned.

"Julie-Anne, it was not you who made Jesus cross. It was me. I hope you
will come again as often as you can because if you never come again I
am not sure that Jesus would forgive me."

A great surge of joy rushed through Julie-Anne and she could not stop
herself from hugging the vicar before going back to the car with mum
and home for Sunday lunch.