I knew that sensation of loss the day President Kennedy died and the way I knew the world would never be the same.
Because of the life and the death of one American.
How he lived. What he said. How he inspired.
Because of each one of us who recognizes something in this place or in another person. Because we can breathe and we know others can.
I do not want to lose that thing. It pains me to think of the many who have lived and those who have given everything so that we can think, and feel, and realize. And find our true voice. That this bright place and song might ever be lost.
That I might no longer be American.
Author's note:
These lines were penned during a Writers' Group Event Visit to Washington's Headquarters at the DeWint House http://dewinthouse.com/ which site I highly recommend. I didn't realize it was there when I lived nearby, and I didn't have much knowledge or appreciation for the challenges of the War of the Revolution through much of my life.
For various reasons I became engaged in investigating my ancestry and genealogy, with much resistance from members of my family, I discovered the DAR, joined, and continued to learn more about people, this country, and history. I began to think about how Monuments become representations of points and people in our History, and that the Monuments are a means of demonstrating regard for each and every person who has lived.
They are a means of recording History.
The DeWint House is not only a Monument to an individual person, it is a site of relevance for our Nation's History. The visit evoked strong feelings and memories of the impression of being American, citizenship, the sacrifices people have made over the generations -- so that we can live free, and consideration of what that Freedom means.
I had not previously considered how difficult the Revolution was and how unlikely it was to succeed and there was not one particular experience or event that led me to awareness. There was a documentary about World War II soldiers stranded on Pacific Islands with no resources. In that documentary, people died without the basics of food or clean water, of diarrhea, starvation, thirst -- having been left utterly unsupported. They had no idea when or if anyone would return for them. It made me feel deeply in my bones the sacrifice others have made of their very lives and the responsibility we have not to abuse that sacrifice ever.
There were records I read from the Grand Army; records of hundreds of deaths of recruits in camps around New York for example, in Staten Island, before ever leaving for the battles. Deaths of sicknesses. Preventable. There were all the journals and letters from the late 18th centuries. There were the civil and church lists of marriages, births, deaths. Many disorganized records. Not consistently taken nor preserved so you have to look in many sources before finding and even then, you might not. There are even records of Graduates of the United States Military Academy who are recorded as having no achievements. Many who became ill, then died shortly following graduation.
So many deaths of children and women. It's not even easy to find the records of the children who have died young, and many have no civil birth record. It's a thing by itself to notice how many children died before reaching adulthood and how they went unaccounted for by History. And some genealogists simply do not record anyone who 'died without issue.'
There are pieces missing as well when you consider how we often look at our own History by Pedigree of direct ancestors. It's not so easy to understand the circumstances when you look only at a Pedigree. For example, there are stories in how many people were second or third wives, or second or third husbands, acquisition of properties, and the various children who accompanied the families, where they came from, and how they were related.
There were the pieces of missing History including documents destroyed when the British occupied New York from the church where my own family attended and many are buried in the cemetery there, in Newtown Jamaica New York, and they wrecked the place and tied up their horses on the alter, so the story goes. Which I suppose was meant to instill at once a sense of dread and also a sense of the desecration of the place once held holy. But that resulted in many records of my own family being among those destroyed by the War of the Revolution.
The interruption of life and liberty and family by a violent and turbulent time. Leading me to research the before, and the after, and try to piece the story together.
There were the invasions of private homes, persons held to die on prison ships, and people persecuted who were determined to be Quakers.
I did not come to these thoughts overnight, or even at that one visit to Washington's Headquarters; however, the visit and recent events have sparked organizing thoughts and writing the words, especially because my memory is poor and unreliable to me. Not only that, I find that my opinion changes over time and with experiences.
Visiting DeWint House brought about such a realization of my own experience and of changing opinion.
I was unaware of the daunting nature of the success of the Revolution.
I was unaware of the potential for the Freedoms to change.
