I watched as the curious, the mourning and the respectful filed past the flag draped casket.
My thoughts flitted about touching on memories of the man whose mortal remains lay therein. His second presidential term closely followed my first time voting at 18, and he had been my candidate of choice. I was proud of that, and I felt again a bit of pride in that the candidate I had voted for had served as our country’s highest elected official. I remembered watching images of him with his arm around “his
As I looked at the flag draped casket, I thought about how much that man was belittled while he was in the Oval Office; belittled for being a person with a gentle spirit. I thought about how he remained steadfast in his principals and convictions in a place where most men choose to change allegiances and morals daily, and I felt respect and admiration for him once again. I remembered hearing about the illness that eventually took him and mourning the fact that the thief in the form of Alzheimer’s slowly robbed his
What was his wife feeling today? For 52 years they were married and for 52 years she stood by his side. I could only imagine she was feeling both grief and loss, likely mixed with gratitude that her Ronnie was once again whole. My heart ached for her in her time of grief and my eyes filled with tears for her loss.
I could hear very little sound in the marble lined room other than the footsteps of those who filed steadily in, around, and out of the room. Some paused to pray, to reflect, to lift a hand or offer a silent prayer. In the queue, an oriental man paused at the head of the casket. He bowed slowly and deeply three times in the Eastern manner of respect and honor, then slowly turned to his right and followed those filing out of the room.
The honor guard of five from our nation’s armed services began the ceremony of the Changing of the Guard. These were the men and women chosen to bear the honor of having the duty of standing guard for a former Commander and Chief during the last time he would sojourn in our nation’s capitol. The honor guard who stood duty for the prior hour slowly stood aside to make way for those chosen to next bear the duty for the hour to come. Those who had finished their time at guard filed slowly and solemnly out in perfect cadence while I marveled at their perfectly measured steps and movements.
While some of this I may one day forget, what next happened is burned into my memory…
Staying as upright as his still healing injuries would allow, the young man moved painfully but with dignity between the ropes forming a semi-circular path around the dais bearing the flag draped casket. Flanked by two men at least twice his 19 or 20 years, his unadorned army khaki’s were crisp and fresh, but plain beside the heavily decorated chest of the colonel who walked beside him. The young soldier stopped at the head of the casket and slowly removed from his arms the canes that aided in keeping him walking steady. His arms were rapped in pressure bandages and very little remained below the elbow of his left arm, while nothing remained below the wrist on his right arm. His army style buzz cut did little to cover the angry scar on the back of his skull, and his forehead bore more scars barely healed.
I looked at his eyes as he straightened to his full height, and slowly saluted the fallen former Commander and Chief that lay before him. He held the salute for a long count then bowed his head in what looked like a moment of silent prayer.
Here stood a man, barely out of boyhood, who probably had not yet been born at the time President Ronald Reagan was elected to his second 4 year term. Here in the Rotunda of the Capitol in
I will carry the vision of that soldier with me for a very long time.
That young man’s newest sacrifice is burned into my mind’s eye: the sacrifice of his own grief and pain in the face of another’s.
What a rare and wondrous thing I was privileged to witness today. I was touched deeply in more ways than one.
)…. Water. ALL over the floor. ALL OVER the place, stopping _just_ short of the carpet on the steps leading stepping down into the family room, or up into the kitchen. Brenna’s rice sock was lying on teh floor and I believe that worked as a barrier to the water seeping onto the carpet. Thank the Lord for that! Thankfully I had JUST filled the laundry sorting bins up with what had ben the floor waiting to be washed . No soggy casualties save a few stray socks under the washer and a sweater that had fallen behind the sorter who knows when. 