The following letter to my father was written several months ago whilst I was visiting with him at Arlington National Cemetery on a gorgeous August morning.
There’s something about that spot about half way down Section 76 that is peaceful and inspiring as I was reflecting on the past few days spent on walkabout in Washington DC and about to head toward the Outer Banks to collect the kids, Mistletoe, and likely a fair heap of cargo so that Julia and Ms Karen can enjoy a week at the shore in peace.
You might find it hard to believe but what you’ll read here was composed in a matter of seconds…it took about a hour to transcribe that blinding flash of revelation on the iPhone just sitting there next to his marker and hoping the thing’s battery wouldn’t run out on me.
The irony is that we rarely had times where we could just sit down and tell each other what we were truly feeling without filters or holding back. That just wasn’t the way things were done in our home…you had your mission and you were expected to accomplish that mission come what may. If you were hurting, tape an aspirin to it. If you were feeling mentally out of sorts, sort it out and get back into the fight. And most importantly, there were no points for second place.
Our conversations may be a fair heap more one-sided now but I plan on pressing that advantage as long as I possibly can! 🙂
14 Aug 2021 – Arlington National Cemetery Section 76, Arlington VA
In about five and a half weeks, it’ll be six years since we gathered in this sacred place for the first time to commit your ashes to this hallowed ground for eternal rest.
That seems so hard to believe when the intervening years have felt an eternity at times.
As much as I miss you, I’m almost glad you’ve not lived to see what has happened in that intervening time.
Right now, all one has is hope things will get better. This trip has alternated between man’s technical dreams made reality to the depths of depravity man is capable of and the incessant threats to our way of life and the Constitution you swore an oath to defend to seeing the beauty man is capable of creating in art.
I miss you terribly but I’m not sad in the traditional sense.
I know you are at peace knowing that whilst your fight may well be done, my mission continues to be to fight for those who can not or will not remember the lessons of the past.
And when my race is run, my hope is that my children will have their turn at taking up the fight. And should they have children of their own, may they also turn their hand toward our shared mission.
At the end of the day, all we truly have is hope…hope for that better future and the strength and will to bring it to life.
So many people in this place lived for that dream and died for it. It falls to us to remember what we were taught and shown by example and resolve to be better than we are and much closer to what we might hope to be.
Against the light of such force of will, darkness and evil cannot stand nor will it ultimately prevail.
Perhaps there will be a battle lost here and there and many days where it seems more steps back than forward but remembering this place and the sacrifices of those who lie here in quiet repose helps replenish the strength that feels like it’s faded with the passage of time.
But that is only if we wish it to be so.
No one ever said the road would be an easy one.
The right paths rarely are.
But they’re the ones we must walk to dream the better future you would wish for us to find.
Never to forget and never forgotten.
Passion and honour demand nothing less.
Once again it is time for us to go our separate ways but in the ways that truly matter, you are even more in my heart and soul than you were before. Every now and I then I find myself with a stray thought that could well have been yours.
That quote of Mark Twain’s that you constantly repeated to me for years was right after all. 🙂
Until I come round next time, rest well and I’ll see you when I see you.