Personal Reflections

Those who serve(d)

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I attended a play today that was immediately followed up by a talk back where audience members asked the actors questions, but they stayed in character, answering as the person portrayed, not the actor. They all did a great job and made it real.

Combat Conversations: Families Affected by War was the name of the production put on by One Fight Foundation and Impact Theatre NYC. It was powerful and eye opening. It was also based on true stories.

The play opened with a unit of soldiers, male and female, who were clearing a building when one of their unit was killed by an explosion, and carried out by two of the soldiers, one male and one female.

We then followed those two home to reunite with their families, the main gist of the play. It did not go as expected for the characters. Joy very quickly disintegrated and turned to disappointment and conflict through no fault of the servicemembers. I didn’t feel like it was about judging either side, though. It showed the difficulty of returning home to changed situations and being expected to instantly reintegrate to work and family, surrounded by those who have no way to know what they’ve been through.  All with little or no support from anywhere.

It also acknowledged that the family of those serving are also dealing with their loved one’s absence.

Not that it’s always so tumultuous with family dynamics, but it often is, and even when it goes better, it’s still not easy. The point is to get more support for our servicemembers returning from combat. It’s not a political issue. It’s a human issue. One that gets far too little attention from either major party, the media, and all of us.

Toward the end of the presentation, one of the members of the play’s presenters asked veterans/servicemembers to stand. I had 4 veterans within a couple seats on either side of me. The same man who asked them to stand made a really good point, that we don’t even know our neighbors names most of the time. There’s no sense of community. How do we offer help when we aren’t even aware who has served?

The media shields us from graphic photos/footage in America. In my work, I see a lot of foreign newspapers. They don’t hold back. I see photos of terror attack aftermaths with dead people lying all over, lynchings, and one very haunting image which appeared in several different papers. It showed a young boy face down in the wet sand, his image reflected in it, where he had washed ashore after he and his family drowned while fleeing for their lives from a war-torn country. I’m afraid I don’t remember which one. There’s so many parts of the world in turmoil.

Our troops are in many of them, out of sight and out of mind.

We’ve never seen war on our soil. Only veterans and those serving can truly understand. But programs like Combat Conversations are helping.  It reminds us that, while servicemembers are away facing a daily kill-or-be-killed environment and their lives back home are on hold, the rest of the world they are a part of keeps moving. Things change. When the service people return, worlds collide.

I could go on and on, but I’ll just wrap up with a heartfelt Thank You to our soldiers and veterans. I have a renewed appreciation for their experience, on the battlefield and off.

 

 

Father Time Fly-by

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Did you ever get awakened by your bladder in the “wee” hours of the morning? Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun. It happened to me this morning at 4:30, about an hour before I get up for work.  My sleep apnea allows me to always get right back to sleep, so that wasn’t the problem. It was the fact that I merely blinked and the alarm was going off. Seems that way sometimes doesn’t it? So, off to work I went. Friday! Only a voluntary OT, half day tomorrow. Whoop, whoop!

To the newcomers, my day job is microfilming material for preservation. It’s mostly newspapers, for historical purposes. Not that anyone goes to the library to use a microfiche reader to pore through old papers. So, anyway, I was working on a project that involves various titles from all over Missouri, mostly smaller, regional papers. The issues were from just the last couple years, so I remembered a lot of the news since it’s not that long ago. It’s been a tumultuous couple of years for our nation, and the world really, but I’m not going to talk about the specifics.

Instead, I just wanted to share the perspective it gave me. Like that hour that passed in a blink this morning, I went through events of the last couple years in a couple of hours. (Only scanning over headlines as I worked. That’s all you have time for.) It got me to thinking about how little time we’re here, relatively speaking.

World conflicts, brutal regimes, scientific discoveries, medical advancements and all the grand spiritual experiences along with the crushing emotional agony of humanity, countered by the ebb and flow of progress and reactions. Is that what it’s like for God? A day is but a thousand years, according to the Bible. Mountains push up and fall, oceans form and dry up, civilizations come and go with a raucous cry that, cosmically, goes as quick as “the wave” at a stadium. (Do people still do that?)

Some people affect the entire world, for better or worse. Most of us toil away in obscurity. But the people around you feel your presence in the world. The majority of the masses will continue their family line and be remembered that way.  Others are remembered for their accomplishments or for the many kindnesses they extended. That makes it all worthwhile. To connect to one another and the world around us allows us to prepare our souls for the journey beyond, whether you believe that’s heaven or hell, a higher spiritual plane, or something else.

I speak to myself more than anyone when I say, make good use of your time here. Fill your days with meaning and it won’t feel like the days have slipped by too fast and empty. That’s why I’ve finally started to write more, and to engage more with others. We can actually slow down time in a sense, by deeply experiencing each day, absorbing and reflecting on events. Don’t just push everything out of your head because you don’t have the time or the energy to think about it. Live it!

Whatever you’ve been putting off, pushing down inside, denying or shutting out, stop!

Look up an old friend, make time to read, visit an elderly neighbor or relative, get back into that hobby you used to love, and most of all, seek out humanity in the fragile, flawed, awesome travelers around you. And as always, we’re all in this together!

 

An Easter birthday scare

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Today, of course, was Easter Sunday. It was also my dad’s 86th birthday.  He saw fit to celebrate by giving us all a scare.

Since my parents moved to a very small senior apartment two years ago, we’ve had most of the holidays at my brother’s and my shared house.  So, it was the five of us, with my sister.  As my mom and I peeled some yams and my sister worked on other stuff, my dad came out to the kitchen for a drink. He had been sleeping on the couch in a half seated, almost lying on his side position.

He stood by the cupboard that holds the glasses for a moment. I had asked him something and glanced over to see that he didn’t look quite right.

I saw that he looked unsteady and, thankfully, was able to close the distance of a few steps to him before he could fall. He fell against me as I put an arm around him and held him up while my mom grabbed the nearby stool. He was all sweaty and clammy and pale, and kept yawning a lot and putting his head down like he wanted to just fall asleep.

I said what everyone was thinking, that we should get him to the hospital, but he didn’t want to go. My mom said he has had fits like this before. I also said about the yawning, that it means the brain needs oxygen. I feared something major was happening.

My brother had come out to the kitchen by then and we switched out the stool for a chair with a back. He sat a couple minutes then insisted he use the bathroom, which is what he was on his way to do when he came into the kitchen. My brother and I led him in, for fear that he might fall. Privacy was not the priority for the moment. It was a sitting down event. When he was situated, we went out and my mom went in to make sure he was okay.  My brother and I guided him back to his chair when done.

He sat for a bit longer in the kitchen with a coat over him and his color came back. I happen to have a blood pressure monitor, since mine has been running high for a while. We checked it and it was pretty low. He said it was low the morning before, and he only took a half pill of his blood pressure medication today. Well, that’s going to get checked on, I assure you.

It was a scary and humbling moment. Given his age, we all know there can’t be an abundance of time left for him to be here with us, but this was the first time it really hit home. At least, the first time since the day of his quadruple bypass heart surgery. That was at least twelve years ago. I think more like 14 or 15.  He came through that with flying colors, and even though it was a nerve-wracking day, the risks are fairly low and I felt like it was going to be okay.

Today was different. It was somehow worse. I guess because the end is nearer, and we didn’t know what was happening. Was it a heart attack, stroke, or something else?

It’s tough to see your parents become weak and vulnerable, when you love and respect them so much. You looked up to them with unquestioning faith as a child, for comfort, guidance and provision.

I will cherish the time we have. I’ve wanted to write down some of my dad’s experiences as he tells them, to share in his memories, and preserve them. A scrapbook, of sorts. Now is the time to do that, and anything else I’ve “always wanted to do” with him.

The cycle of life spins quickly. So, get out there and live it! And, share your experiences, because we’re all in this together.