Memorial Day around the World

This weekend we have the last Monday of May, and we celebrate Memorial Day in United States.  It originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service.

In Brazil, 'Dia de Finados' (Day of the Dead) is celebrated November 2nd. It is celebrated after November 1st, that is the Day of all Saints holiday. Inmany countries, Latinos like Cuba, Mexico (Día de los Muertos), Puerto Rico, some from Central and South America that has Spanish cultures, and those that has their language root in Latin, like Italy, France and Portugal or Brazil, have had their date introduced by Odilio, a munk from a Benedict monastery in Cluny, France.

In other countries, the culture of care and visit the cemitery and pray for the dead varies.

In the Netherlands, people commemorate their dead on the 4th of May. They commonly keep a minute's silence starting at 20:00 hrs.

In Germany, they have Volkstrauertag which comes in November and it honors all who died in war. T/hey still have the Totensonntag (Death's sunday) in November, too, which was originally made up to remember the fallen soldiers of the German Free War - against Napoleon I.


In the U.K. they have Remembrance Sunday celebrated on the Sunday nearest to November 11th every year, with two minutes silence at 11am to commemorate the date and time of the 1918 armistice. Remembrance Sunday remembers the dead of both World Wars and of all conflicts the British have been in since, such as Korea,The Falklands, The Gulf,and Northern Ireland. France and Belgium also celebrate the 11th November for the same reason.

In Australia they have ANZAC Day, which is held on the 25th of April. That date was the day that the ANZAC's hit the shores of Gallipoli. They traditionally have a dawn service, followed by the old diggers marching down city streets. The day honours veterans and the mates they left behind from all wars.

Israel has two memorial days. Holocaust Remembrance Day, and a week later Memorial Day for IDF members. Since they use a lunar calendar, the days can fall anytime from mid-April to mid-May.

Canada observes Remembrance Day each year on November 11th. It is typically accompanied by a service in Ottawa, and parades around the country. Veterans groups (the Royal Canadian Legion) sell plastic poppies that you wear as a pin. Different parts of the country observe the day differently.

If your country is not here, I would love to hear how and when do you celebrate your dead.

Independent on how and when you celebrate this day, your culture or tradition to do so, Memorial Day is not about division; it is about reconciliation.

I am a Writer. Are you sure?

"So, since when did you decide to be a writer?"

"Well, I write since I was a little girl."

"Okay, but everybody I know wants to be a writer!"

"Let it be! The person who writes is a writer, the person who doesn't, is not. Simple like that."

"But there is more than that. You can aspire to be a published author. Or a bestselling author. Or a magazine free-lancer writer. Or a professional ghost writer..."

"It doesn't matter. You should aspire to be a good or better writer."

There we go.

Sometimes we writers feel like no one respect us. Every writer likes to be read and to receive critics, more good than bad. The best people to share our experiences might be other writers, that feel how we feel. Between want to be something, and actually be it, there is a long road to travel.

Get where we want as writers is another story. I don't say that to be a pessimist, but if we want to be writers, we need to actually 'WRITE'.

There is no advices towards this area of action. Chances are that all we are taught might work, and it might not. If people don't comment, how do I know if they read it? As writers, we want to write what we want, not what is being sold. That means that there are no answers on how to to be a writer.

I have a friend that wrote a fabulous book. The most of editors and publishers he present his masterpiece, simply turned him down saying that the book was not saleable.

One after the other, repetitively. That is discouraging. Make us skeptic and even wonder about our role as writers. Make us feel like amateurs. Make us feel like everyone else is better than we are.

Like I've done and many great authors I know, some even in the NY bestselling list, he opted for self-publishing, and got to put his work out there. The most important is that he loves his work and is confident of its value.

When we live in a world where everything goes around money and the profit companies can get from your ideas, it's so hard to put out there what we think.

Some days a blank page is so scary and feel like we are climbing a lost mountain in the worse snowstorm. Other days we hate what we wrote that day.

Many times we need to take care of paying the bills, because we sweat so hard about writing our book and publishing, and anybody buys it besides some friends and other writers, and we need to go out of our route and find extra jobs to pay the pile of bills. Or we need marketing our work in order to reach the most people we can for the coming of our next book. This can make us lose the track, stop writing for a while, and get stuck. We all have good and bad days, and they are part of life.

We need to return to the routine and keep writing anyway. Until we finish. Yes, finish! Until our craft is readable, and understood.

In the end, we create our world and it's ours. It will always have someone to tell you what doesn't matter. In the very end, it's always between you and the blank page you are looking at. It's you and your story. Better if you like it and want to write it, and do it well.

Expect rewards for the things we do, or write, is the one way road, and become discouraging. In everything we do in life the most important is embrace the feeling of satisfaction when we get to do our thing.

So write. Photograph. Paint. Run. Cook. It doesn't matter. This happen with everyone, not just writers. As a mother I know that I'm invisible the most of times, but I keep doing everything. Same as a writer, or a photographer.

If I'm happy with who I am and with what I do, Nobody, and I mean Nobody, will make me stop to look back.

Not even myself.