WE DON'T ALL remember. And more of us go through the motions. But there are those who pause, and stop, and understand exactly how you bought us the right to be so cavalier. And we thank you with words inadequate, and prayers unformed. We honor your sacrifice, always, though at times we lament the path that brought you there; it was not always the wisest or most virtuous.
That is no matter. That is politics. Your service is of loyalty, and sacrifice, and courage, and we remember not just because it is proper, but because it is a complicated thing to both venerate the sacrifice you made for people you would never know, and to mourn the loss of you -- what your courage may have added to a world both scarred by too much of your type of sacrifice, and blessed too little by healing.
We just celebrated an anniversary many of you never got to see. Twenty years ago a wall came down; a wall that you would perhaps have seen as futile. With the destruction of that wall came hope and a desire for a better way; hope that soon enough crumbled in its own quintessence of dust; dust still swirling from the shattered ashes of concrete. There is shame that in the face of your sacrifice, we still think in terms of walls and barriers and separation. Maybe one day it will be not so.
And on that day, maybe then -- maybe only then, can we approach your sacrifice with honor and dignity untouched by guilt. Guilt that we have not made more of the world you granted us.
But until then, we pause, on this - the eleventh day of the eleventh month to say, with humility, "thank you for our world." Imperfect as it is, it would not exist without you.
So Rest, please. Rest in peace.
