What July 4th Means to Me

[Deirdre Reilly]

For me, the Fourth of July this year is all about my Uncle Gerald, who lives down in North Carolina. He is very frail now, and is in a nursing home being attended to by doctors and loving family. To look at him you might not guess that he was a WWII hero, who was shot down not once but twice during the war. He named his first plane the “Little Jeanie” after my mother, who was born while he was in the service. Like many veterans he is quiet about his military service, but a recent article in his hometown newspaper tells the tale of bravery and skill and what has to be the providence of a gracious God to keep him here when the odds were against him. Yet there are so many more, unheralded and some even unclaimed, laying under the ground in foreign soil, who did no less, and who gave their lives for an ideal that most just talked of from the comforts of home. These men and women took the flame that the first Patriots sparked, and decided that it was worth it to protect an ideal that became this country. This year, I will celebrate my uncle’s life when I watch the fireworks, and I will wish for a portion of their sparks and light to somehow magically fall on those unattended graves far away, adorning them with a sparkling message of “Goodbye, rest well, and job well done.”

Deirdre Reilly

Reading, MA