Rembering and Celebrating

I was trying to figure out what to put as my status on Facebook this morning.  Many of my friends have something about the fact it's Remembrance Day.  There's no question that's important.  My Dad's brother was killed in Italy during World War II. The thing is, it's also my brother's birthday.  We may not always, or even often, see eye to eye on many things, but it's still his birthday and that's worth celebrating. 

The two things always seem to stand in stark contrast. 

My birthday is close to Christmas and, though I'm forty ... at least for another month ... people still ask me if I dislike having my birthday close to Christmas.  Our family Christmas tree still doesn't usually go up until after my birthday, so the two celebrations remain separate. 

That can't really happen for my brother's birthday.  It's the same day.  The day of somber remembrance for those who have been willing to pay the ultimate price to make peace a reality in our world, that day is also his birthday, a day to celebrate life. 

Maybe they're not really such opposite things.  Yes, we need to remember the sacrifices that have been made on our behalf, but our actions also need to show we value those sacrifices by not forgetting to celebrating the life and freedom we have.

I guess that decides it.  Remember and Celebrating, that's what I'm doing today.

A Name Is a Name Is a … Or Is It?

“What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”

Thus wrote Shakespeare, but a silly thing at work the other day made me wonder.

One of my tasks is processing applications, and late in a very busy day, I picked up an application for a company whose name was Gardening Gnomes Landscaping.  I’ll admit, I like garden gnomes … at least the cute ones … and probably because there are still two in my parents’ yard that had previously been in my grandma’s garden almost as long as I can remember, garden gnomes make me smile.

I loved the company’s name and kind of wished that there would be something wrong with their application so that I needed to contact them.  There wasn’t, but I just wanted to tell them how awesome their name was.

I mentioned the name to a couple of colleagues.  One got it and was just as tickled as I was, but the other one looked at me perplexed and said, “Why would they do that to themselves?”

The answer seemed blatantly obvious to me.  I’d hire a landscaping company called Gardening Gnomes Landscaping in a heartbeat. If I’m being honest with myself, I’d probably be tempted to be completely irresponsible and hire them without any research or references or any of the things a responsible adult should do before paying a company money to do something.  The name gives me such a warm, fuzzy, trusting feeling, all because of the association with one of the most important people in my life, my grandma, who also happens to have been a fabulous and passionate gardener. 

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I don’t need any landscaping done, and the company is based in a different city, but it did make me think.  How much weight do I put in how things … or people … are named?  I’d like to think that I’m not really influenced by things like that but my reaction makes me wonder. 

Would a rose called by another name, really smell just as sweet if the name made me think of something stinky?  Could I be objective enough to know? Or would my senses be misled by old memories?