The Heroics of Being Alive, Part 5

The Path

Author’s Note: Friends, for the past several years, I’ve made a point of adding or updating an essay about my father’s military service and posting it around Memorial Day. What began as a short remembrance of my dad, who was a reluctant soldier, has grown substantially. I add to it each year, including this year. Despite its expanding, I fear we still haven’t come to any conclusions. But we’ll keep trying, if for no other reason than because my father deeply disliked being a soldier and perhaps he’d appreciate my attempts to come to terms with this part of my family history.

So, this year, we’ll present you this new updated essay in five parts – Today, Part Four, is titled The Pride. Link here for Part One: The Ceremony. Link here for Part Two: The Romance. Link here for Part Three: The Heroics. Link here for Part 4: The Pride. I leave judgement to you all and post without further comment.

Special note - Please stay to the end of the story where I have a special announcement about some upcoming content going out only and directly to Day By Day subscribers!

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Part 5: The Path

I don’t actually know where to go from here when it comes to Memorial Day. I may never. But out there in the parking lot of her school, as my daughter finishes her song, she glances over at me and I wave like a madman. I wave and smile like a lunatic because I’m there for her and she worked hard at learning that song, so I don’t care in that moment about America. She grins and looks away, giggling with her friends about her old man’s antics.

As we always do after this concert, we’ll talk a little bit about Memorial Day. I’ll show her a picture of her grandfather, whom she does not remember. I’ll tell her that he was a good man and a good daddy, because he was. A good soldier, though? He was not.

I want to find a pathway to celebrating life and I worry that, maybe, this isn’t it. I want there to be no veterans. And yet, I feel engaged enough with the light to understand that it only burns brighter because of the darkness. But I wish that darkness didn’t hurt so very much all the time.

Ultimately, I suppose, if you’re hurting, your heart’s beating. And if your heart’s beating, there’s still time. I want that to be enough. I wish it was all bigger. I wish I was bigger. 

I decide that this time, I’ll show my daughter a picture of her grandfather not in uniform, but rather, holding me, there on a sunny spot of lawn in the back yard of our nondescript, suburban home. Or the picture of me pushing both of them down a corridor, my father in a wheelchair, my baby in a stroller.

As is the case every single Memorial Day, I don’t have a plan. My uncertainty remains. And when confronted with uncertainty, I just turn to her because I know I love her, and that gives me focus.

The parades will come and go, there will always be wreathes to lay on tombstones, and she’ll always have another patriotic song to learn. I wish none of that were true, but it is.

So, as always, we’ll push on and remember what’s worth remembering, and hope for the best. That’s heroic, maybe? That’s worth celebrating while we wait and work for better. We’re alive and that’s what I have for now. Maybe that’s enough.

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Thanks for reading this series everyone. I hope you enjoyed it, though perhaps enjoyed isn’t the right word. I hope that you took a few moments to just reflect on what all this means, has meant, and can mean. We appreciate you all!

Tomorrow, we’ll go back to our normal content with something very special. Our normal Day By Day essay here on Friday will be a simple reminder. A reminder of what you may ask? Well, as a special thank you to all of you, and only you, our subscribers, you are all going to receive a special PDF of Little Bean’s big interview project with the teen band Freeze the Fall. That’s going to come with an exclusive behind the scenes essay on how this project came about and you’ll all have a first look at how her bio will appear when the interview gets published in some media outlets. I’ll also send you all a couple special photos. This package will come straight to your email, from me personally, as a thank you and a way to give you all a little treat for being with us.

So look for that on Friday. We hope you enjoy and keep on reading! On we go!