Yesterday was rainy for most of the day. When the clouds lifted and the rain stopped you could see that we are at peak. Saturday is supposed to be sunny and will be the best for viewing the leaves. We will be off to the fair. Free to enjoy the world around us.
Running errands brings me off the hill and into community. The best of living in a small town. Morrisville is a town of 5000. We have a local paper and a stop light. Generally we pretty much know one another and for New Englanders, are pretty friendly.
At the market there was a women who was wearing a rather large button on her coat with a picture of a guy in uniform. We passed by each other several times until my curiosity got the best of me. I asked her who she wore the button for. It was a 4″ picture of her son who is serving somewhere in Iraq. He has been there over a year and will be returning home in December. She added that there will be a wedding when he returns and that the bride and her family wear buttons too.
He is stationed somewhere in the middle of the desert, in nowhere Iraq. He was there for months before he could get mail, 6 weeks without a shower, and no internet connection. No Skype or other military connection for her to see him.
Yesterday I was able to have breakfast with Emilie and see her new apartment.
Sorry for the fuzzy focus on the shot, but you get the idea. She was able to have a bit of breakfast before class and get a call into mum at the same time.
She was able to take me around her apartment by walking around with her laptop and she showed me all of the rooms and the bad paint in the bathroom.
I said to the mom that I don’t think would be able to deal with my kid serving in another country. I would be consumed with worry and selfish in not wanting my child to be in harm’s way. I simply can’t wrap my brain around how the mothers and family of serving solders cope.
It is a remarkable thing that this women does. To quietly wear a button showing the pride she has in her son, while she shops. We can choose to engage or we can choose to ignore. I was glad that I asked her about the button. At the end of our brief encounter she thanked me for making her day better. I thanked her for the service her son is giving us.
Our freedom is like that button. We all have it and we can choose to go about our business and not think much about it, or we can choose to take a minute and be thankful for it.
