Our Boys

In all honesty, I'm a bit of a sentimental wuss most of the time - I used to cry like a baby when we sang Puff The Magic Dragon at prep school, because the thought of Jackie just growing up and forgetting about Puff devastated me. Don't tell me it's really about drugs, because I won't believe you! 

Toy Story struck a particular chord as I was an only child for seven years until my bright, shiny, space cadet sister came along. You'd have thought I need hospitalisation after watching Up and Marley & Me.

Unfortunately, it would appear that as the wedding gets closer, I'm getting worse. 

Yesterday, I was listening to Belinda Carlisle's Summer Rain. It's one of a group of songs from that era about a girl and boy being separated by life, but pledging to love each other anyway. All very cute and possibly a bit samey for some people's tastes. 

It only dawned on me a year or so ago that the word I wasn't hearing correctly was, in fact, "military". Now I'm a pacifist through and through, but something about the nature of the song changed for me when it became about a soldier going away to war and never coming back. I was a bawling mess and completely unable to sing along by the end. 

A friend's Facebook status comparing the plane bringing "our boys" home to rest with the plane bringing our embarrassing, overpaid, underperforming, adulterous football team home really socked it to me - our ideas of who we hold up in reverence are really skewed.

So, while I've never been anything but quietly pro-peace, I'm acknowledging my need to be a bit more supportive of those who go away and might never come back. We all want the same thing, after all - a happy, safe world.