Independence Day

stillhotundertheco
Jul 4
3 min read

Bruce and I were never consistent about how we celebrated Independence Day. Sometimes we just stayed at home. Sometimes we braved the crowds in one city or another to watch fireworks. Once we went on a boat on Lake Union and FROZE! It was so cold. Once we watched them from a lovely inn nestled in the wine country of eastern Washington. In Columbus, we could walk the two blocks onto the campus of Capital University and set up our chairs and watch the fireworks there. That was also the neighborhood where there was a huge parade that went right down our street. We always set up food and festivities on our front lawn in the morning and invited whatever neighbors wanted to wander over to do so and watch the parade. It was Rockwellian! And an all- time favorite was the year we were already in southern California for a wedding and Bruce surprised me with Fireworks and a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. This, friends, is the kind of person he was.

Still, this is all to say that this is not a holiday when I will grieve the end of a specific sort of tradition. I have a couple of invitations to parties and fireworks, so I’ll see what I feel up to and join in as I feel ready.

To be honest, though, any reluctance to celebrate is about more than grief. Or, rather, the grief encompasses more than Bruce’s death.

The way that this country has turned from its moral responsibility of taking care of the least of these is grievous. The way we have abandoned the principles upon which this nation was founded – that every person is created equal, that every person is entitled to certain unalienable rights, among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….grievous seems an impotent descriptor.

Make no mistake, the actions of this administration are immoral. They are reprehensible. And the people who support/ed it are either eerily quiet or double talking in defense so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up.

In the days to come we are likely to watch health insurance stripped from the most vulnerable. I was once one of them. My children and I depended on Medicaid for a season. And other forms of public assistance. I didn’t work in that time because I was finishing seminary/grad school so we could have a better future and so I could be a contributing citizen. But upcoming changes would not have afforded me this safety net. My children and I would have been without healthcare and likely without other necessities, like food, as well.

In the days to come, and even in these days, the rights and privileges due every person are being taken away from some because of their gender identification. This includes the trans community AND it includes women – access to the care they/we need to be healthy and productive and stable (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) is and has been taken away. Make no mistake, the men making these laws and the women who are blindly following them do not care about the sanctity of life. They care about creating and maintaining a system that will allow them to maintain the power/s they have accumulated throughout history. That system is the “again” in MAGA.

And in the meantime, the rich will get richer and those of us who are not even close to financially rich will pay the price for it all.

It is grievous.

When my children were little I always dressed them in cute (cheap) shirts for Independence Day (thanks Old Navy) and we lit sparklers and when the boys were little they’d sing “Proud to be an American”. (Cringe. Sorry for sharing that publicly, guys). And I want to be able to be proud again.

So here’s what I am proud of:

I am proud that millions of us are protesting this madness.

I am proud that there are still sanctuary cities (yay Olympia!)

I am proud that there are caregivers willing to first do no harm.

I am proud that we are a nation of immigrants.

I am proud….and I am grieving. And those two things can be true at the same time.

Happy Independence Day, America. Let’s be better.