As I drove home last week on one of our winding New England roads, I considered why I haven’t written in this space quite as frequently as in years past. It was just about this time—Lent, 2011, that I began this blog on a daughterly dare. Since then, I’ve loved the opportunity it provides to seek and share larger thoughts from doing or seeing simple things. Often ideas were born as I walked the dog on the salt marsh or commuted by train into the city. Now, I wondered, were those such strong influences that other inspirations are lacking? But then, as is the way of the Muse, today I had that familiar, extra ‘moment of noticing’ as I hoisted the flag out back; today is President’s Day.
As the flag went up, I realized another good reason to hoist her: today on this date, my father was born 100 years ago in his small, rural Kentucky town. A flood of memories came back, but mostly I wondered whether he had ever raised the flag in his WW2 Army post in Key West, Florida. Back then, many of his fellow high school graduates of 1942 knew it was only a matter of time until they’d be called up. Some enlisted as soon as they could. They left farms in the care of others and put their own aspirations on hold.
From there my mind tracked to my British father-in-law’s war service. He joined up, training to march with broomsticks and then served in tanks criss-crossing North Africa. And then I recalled a dinner party we attended while living in upstate New York. The guests, descendants of that war: our fathers, mostly, had served three countries, in both theatres, and even on both sides of the conflict. The hostess, a Jewish refugee who’d fled to Paris. For all these, were they following civic duties, moral choices, or caught in a huge web not of their doing?
Now it’s time to find the day’s normal rhythms. The house is quiet, and since I have a raging sore throat, I’m not even talking to myself. But as I begin to rake up a small pile of leaves on this mild day, throw in the laundry, sort papers, postpone jury duty, I’m reminded of the duties, choices and love we see in the everyday lives of those around us. And now, with such great suffering in Turkey, Ukraine, and elsewhere, I hope the hands that are helping others cope can bring to them some small comfort of this same love.
from the smallest 