My Father's America

I have been thinking of my dad a lot these past few days and weeks, but never more so than today - Veteran’s Day. My father nearly died on a ship that blew up as it approached Omaha Beach in 1944. He was taken back to England to get his glasses fixed and then he returned to Normandy and endured the Battle of the Bulge. He was 20 years old, a boy who put his life on the line because it was the right thing to do. Dad’s story - the one he barely ever mentioned - was not unique to the families I grew up with. Our fathers all cried out in their sleep, flinched at the sound of sonic booms and fireworks, adjusted to missing limbs, and mourned their friends who didn’t make it home. All of them believed they were defeating an evil presence and making the world safer for their kids.

I was taught in school a  little over a decade later that because of our democracy, Nazis could never gain a foothold here. America had rules of law, system guardrails, and a free press that made such moral depravity impossible. We were also taught to understand and forgive the German people because they didn’t see it coming - they had been duped by a callous, lying despot. America, however, would see the warning signs and turn the country back to a brighter path. My father believed that with all his heart. Maybe I did, too.

But here we are. A plurality of the country - shielded somehow, from a wannabe dictator’s own words and indifferent to the implications of his lies, actions and ambitions - has elected a man who has said he admires Hitler, who curries favor with dictators, and boasts that he will prosecute journalists and disassemble the government as we know it. The guardrails may or may not stand.

Today I went to the Veterans’ Day parade in Media, Pennsylvania where a few of my father’s ancient WWII compatriots waved from antique cars, flanked by soldiers from more recent wars. High school bands waved flags and played  “My Country Tis of Thee,” and I began to cry. What will America look like when these kids soon come of age, when they, at 20 years old, are asked to stand up for their country? Who will they be fighting and what will they be fighting for?

America has never been perfect. Far from it. And I must assume that those who have elected our new president see virtues I cannot see, and I must hope they aspire - as I do - to build a country and a world that is better than it is today. But I cannot for the life of me get those warning signs out of my head as I watch these past and future patriots parade.

And I’m glad my father didn’t live to see this day.

Hugging Trees

Yesterday I hugged an old red maple, the matriarch of our back yard. Or rather, I hugged the last remaining trunk after the rest had been loaded onto a truck and driven off to be ground to dust and laid to rest somewhere that isn’t here. Even on its side, the giant, hollow slice of trunk attached to broken roots the size of wrestlers’ arms was a good head taller than me, impossible to get my arms around. So I did my best to rub my hands along the hollow edges of its weathered core and to whisper goodbye and thank-you, standing by its side.

There are neighbors my age who remember climbing this tree when it was young and others, nearly middle aged, who played with (and in one case, buried) toys in the maple’s wider shadow. We, the tree’s last caretakers, coddled it as best we could these past two years, and planted its future replacement nearby so the tired and scarred old thing would know that it could - some day - let go.

And then, after last week’s rain, the maple dropped to the soggy ground with less of a thud and thunder than one would expect - a quiet giving up the ghost. And, as if it had time to think about its landing, as if it still cared about this place, this yard, the tree’s biggest, longest, ivy-tangled branches landed on either side - within inches - of its replacement as if to cuddle and protect it…. or to pass the torch. So, too, the trunk itself made sure to miss the delicate spring garden just emerging amid its roots - a precious gift in life, a miracle in dying.

Just last week I watched two red-tailed hawks explore the tree as if looking for a place to build a nest. Blue jays and Carolina wrens crossed the yard to flit endlessly among its branches; squirrels picked at the red buds optimistic about yet another spring; a mama fox climbed some eight feet up the trunk to rest on the maple’s open arms and watch the yard. The animals will miss this tree. And I will too. Even as my eyes quickly adapt to its absence, even as the birds find other trees in which to build their nests, even as the fox finds a safer place to birth her pups. Time passes. Things change. Life goes on. But there is a moment when it’s right to mourn what’s lost and to take the time to hug and thank a tree.

Between Seasons

I trudge through lingering snow to where the sun has warmed the soil enough to reveal more white stuff of a different nature. The ephemeral snow drops have opened, covering with little crowns of white a remote hillside at the bottom of our yard, showing off for nobody but me and the two foxes I saw yesterday sniffling through the delicate flowers, checking out, I can only presume, the best place to raise their coming litter. They rolled there, like kittens, their shiny red coats first in the snow piles and then in the flowers before moving off toward what den I hope they’ll choose again - in full view of the house, but safely behind and beneath a fallen tree. It is that time of year - transitions. Days when the sun feels warm and promising, other days when the ice solid in the birdbath offers little promise that spring is on its way.

I love this season between seasons, the occasional chance to get out and feel the sun and weather the mud, to check my new trees and shrubs for buds that promise fruit and flowers and (hopefully) to assure myself new growth has not been eaten by the deer. It is time to order compost and eradicate the weeds that appear before my flowers have come back to life.It is the time when I can take stock of how my garden has evolved, to remember where I moved things, and what more I will manage when spring truly comes along.

This month, too, by coincidence (or maybe not), I am helping with three separate reunions that will happen over the course of spring and summer. Each represents a significant season in my life: my beloved and extraordinary elementary education (60 years), my high school graduation (55 years), and a reunion with my stalwart team of explorers I helped to cross Antarctica (32 years). It is disorienting. Each day moves me back and forth in time, recalling names and places, young friends now old - first loves, bosom buddies, confidants, and forgotten rivals: my rich life divided into seasons. I am looking forward to the events to come, even as I’m overwhelmed. Like my garden, I will notice the changes time has wrought on friends, the world, and me, how different paths and choices took us all to different places.. and for a lovely moment, brought us back again.