One of the most disturbing sights from the recent uprising is the appearance of the American flag many times and in many places in the mob. I’ve been seeing the flag flying from tall staffs attached to pick-up trucks for many weeks. Now, I wonder if I would ever want to wear a little flag on my lapel, or fly it from my car—and what would the reaction be? Certainly it might be assumed that the flag signals my support for the disgraced president.
But it is still my flag, and ours. I am including a photo of my son Will’s grave, in Kentucky, with a small American flag planted beside it, the gift of dear neighbors whose family owned my farm for two generations. I admit that at first I did not like the appearance of the flag on Will’s grave, although I have no reason to believe he would have objected. Like many young people, he probably felt very little connection to his country.
Now I see that the flag on Will’s grave allows me to reclaim it. It marks the final resting place of a young man I dearly loved and who might have lived to honor and be an honor to his country. One of my many regrets is that I urged him, years ago, to ignore an Army recruitment letter and subsequent attempts to get him to sign up for military service; the terrible record of our endless wars and the hundreds of thousands of deaths made me unwilling to urge him to participate.
But now the flag is his, in his final resting place, and so, at least to a degree, it is mine, changed by its proximity to my beloved son who was so generous, loving friends, his children, his other relatives and animals. One of his last letters asked me to put off spring cutting of the fields at the farm because that was the time rabbits built their nests and cared for their babies in the long grass.
You write with such beauty, grace and thoughtfulness. Thank you for sharing.
I think of our flag as something like a spiritual trampoline. People go in so many different directions using it as a platform or prop. In our lifetimes we’ve seen people employ it to enhance their expressions of free speech. Holding it high with soaring pride. Burning it. Dragging it on the ground and stomping on it. Used as fashion statements such as sewing it onto jeans. We’ve seen our flag flutter in the winds of war and raised in victory as millions of people in other counties were liberated from savage tyranny. And we’ve seen it used as propaganda by politicians to motivate our masses.
And certainly we seen it placed on the gravesites of our dear loved ones such as your son and my father. Dad was cardiologist and straight out of UL Medical School when he served as a Captain in the Army Medical Corps during WW2.
I think flags carry a special and deeper meaning in the context of cemeteries. When I lived in Cambridge England I visited a cemetery, very beautiful and scenic on the quiet outskirts of town. The locals called it the American Cemetery. It was filled with the graves of young American boys mostly aged around 19 or so who left their homes and were killed trying to save the free world during WW2.
That’s the flag that’s found a home on your son’s resting place. With all our freedoms to be born an American is the luckiest way to start a life. Maybe you and I can consider the tiny flags on our loved ones graves as cherished tokens in continuance of that good luck. Should our eternal human souls benefit from good luck than we’ve done what we can.
Your piece, Reclaiming Our Flag, spoke to me. I feel the same way. I shared it with a friend of mine and I thought you might appreciate her comment.
“Such a sweet person. I lived on a farm as a child and saw firsthand what happened to the baby rabbits. I always think of them, when I see the tractors in the fields. Your son must have been a very good person, who truly cared. I will think of him when I see rabbits. Thank You for your story. I feel the same way about the flag. I am very patriotic and flew the flag frequently, on every pertinent holiday, but I am taking a break for awhile. I don’t want anyone to believe that I support what flying the flag has come to symbolize. I will fly it again someday, but I don’t know when that will be.”
I hope this disgraceful use of our flag won’t long continue to affect us and impede our desire to fly it on special days. In my heart, the American flag still represents our traditional values. I detest being made to feel guilty about showing our cherished symbol of freedom.
Thank you for sharing this.