Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Spirit on Parade
Email to a friendPrint this article
On Monday morning my oldest daughter marched with her brownie troop in our town’s Memorial Day Parade. She agonized over what to wear and finally pulled on a white hoodie because the brown vest didn’t go with the red shirt and blue shoes. Once she got that cleared up she was ready to go.
She dashed out of the car and squeezed in for a place holding the “Brownies Remember” banner, not because she believed in what the banner said, but because that’s where her friends were. A well-organized troop leader handed her a small bundle of flowers. “Flowers! How nice!“ (I’m sure I overheard her say). She was front and center, surrounded by friends, doing something clearly important, as evidenced by all the uniformed people in line to march with her. She marched because her friends marched, held the sign in order to be next to them, and generally looked at the parade as a great opportunity for socializing.
I never remember how staggeringly powerful a Memorial Day parade can be until I get to the cemetery and begin listening to the words of people who appreciate what the day is all about, first hand. This year their words seemed to hit me harder than ever. The solemn faces of the boy scouts and the police force and the other observers absolutely sent me. And I was sure I was not alone. I was sure the Troop Leader, the Navy veteran and the Unitarian minister who spoke were fighting back tears as well.
When the Eagle Scouts raised the flag, when the Brownies placed their flowers at the flagpole (oh so that’s what they’re for!) and when the trumpeter played Taps, I all but bawled my eyes out. I thought that like me, everyone saw this year, with body counts so frequent that no one even pay attention to them on the news anymore, that really “getting” Memorial Day meant seeing the world as a dark and disappointing mess.
These people are the very definition of Spirit! I cried to myself through choked-back tears and looked over at my Brownie to share an understanding glance. But she was not waiting around to catch eyes with me. She was whispering, tickling, giggling, glancing around and generally ADHD-ing it through the somber event.
I thought about standing up and yelling at her over the hush of the cemetery, I thought about taking her aside later for a long lecture on respect, and I thought about how I failed as a mother by never impressing upon her the gravity of war and death and sacrifice. I was ready to rip her out of Brownies and send her to military school.
But I didn’t, and as the parade left the graveyard and wove down the hill, she marched by and gave me a “Hallo Mutha!” with a smile and a giggle and a twinkle of pride in her eyes. And down the hill she gripped that banner and marched on like she knew what she was doing.
And wouldn’t you know I almost started tearing up all over again. Because she showed me in that moment that she didn’t need to “get it” the way I did, she needed to get it so that it made sense in her own nine year old world. And her smile as she walked by made me realize that I don’t want her to “get it” so that she feels angry and cynical and pessimistic about the world as adults often do!
She doesn’t need to understand this yet:
Or this.
Not for a long time. She has a Spirit of Giving just as strong as anybody elses in that graveyard I realized. Hers is hers, mine is mine, yours is yours.
Comments
Well said. I have shared these same feelings about what we should tell our kids, how they should experience the world and how it reflects on us. I will remember what you said, “Hers is hers, mine is mine, yours is yours”.
What a great authentic article… I think that the feelings of being ‘proud’ and ‘safe’ are invaluable. Thanks, Robin!
Robin, I am so glad that you are the mother of my granddaughters… XX Gardi
robin- thanks for bringing tears to my eyes as i read you article. What a beautiful piece that you wrote, and i am so gald i am not the only one that feels the same way! jill
Robin, you so succintly captured my thoughts this Memorial Day, as I witnessed a similar ceremony in my husband’s small home town. My 4 and 7 year old girls alternately listened (to the speeches of high school kids who had written fictional letters from men and women who had withstood the trauma of war) and giggled with their cousins… it struck me that their bright hearts and minds were not, and need not yet be, ready for the sad reality that the service portrayed. I know well that there is a time when we will help them to understand the complex facets of war and their role in such a world—in the meantime, I just wanted to wrap them up and kiss their bug sprayed bodies!
Just hours ago I stood at our town’s Memorial Day ceremonies and shared many of these same feelings. My children were giggling a bit too loud, our puppy was barking a bit too frequently and I was crying. What started as a lump in my throat welled up in my eyes, and then streamed down my checks. I wanted to run to my kids ,with a finger to my lips, and a big “Shhh!“....but I thought better of it…they do not yet need to understand why this event was more than a big social gathering - but we do! Thanks, Robin, for such a wonderful and thought provoking article.
whoa. that one struck a cord on so many levels. I think I’ll let my girls be 8 and 6 today.
Thanks Robin, well said.
Page 1 of 1 pages