Wounded Soldier 2

This weekend I hung up my wounded soldier. He is heading up a platoon of soldiers hung on my tree. It's been my obsession ever since I was a small child to collect these soldiers. I remember going out in the Christmas season with my parents and choosing one ornament every year for the tree. Almost every year I'd choose a soldier. When I got a little older I picked up a few trumpets amongst other things, but I always had a special place in my heart for the little guys. They protected my tree and I'd play with them for hours. This little guy had lost his feet, and I wrote about him a few months back. He has joined his platoon and he is front and centre in my tree. At first glance you may not even notice that he is missing his feet. He has now become my favourite ornament and I long to add another to his ranks.

He symbolizes a lot in my life. His struggle to join find a place on my tree, the lonesomeness he experienced while waiting for someone to pick him up and put him in a place with love. The realization that he will always be different and missing a part of himself. He also reminds me as a Canadian we are protected by our soldiers the freedoms that we have have been bought and paid for in blood. That there are many wounded soldiers out there that perhaps don't have such visible wounds and should treated with as much care as I showed him. That people of every walk in life, regardless if they have a visible disability or not should be treated with as much care and should be given a hand up not a hand out. Perhaps if society acted more like the soldiers on my tree and found use for those of us with disabilities (visible or not) it would add beauty to our own community. How we treat others who can do nothing for us, says a lot about ourselves. That even those of us who are disabled can add beauty to our community and that there are a lot of broken toys just waiting for someone to pick them up and love them. That people sometimes don't need to be fixed in order for them to find someone who loves them. He gives me hope.