I will depart this week from my regular column of “Funny Things from Yesterday” and write about love of family and country.
I let Mother’s Day and Father’s Day get by this year without a special article for either one. The 4th of July has arrived and I feel very patriotic for our country. I loved my parents very much, and to honor them I am writing about them and our country.
The first love each of us encounters is a mother’s love and we give our love in return as well as having a dependency on her. We are held so gently and tenderly by a mother who loves and cares for us. She nurtures us through the first years of our life and then we are ready to go to school, but a mother’s love doesn’t end there. We grow up and leave home for college, military service or marriage, but a mother’s love doesn’t end there. As we have our own family a mother’s love doesn’t end there, but steadily increases to take in each new family member with the same love and tenderness that each of us had as a child.
The second love we realize we are receiving is a father’s love. We also give our love in return, not understanding the full depth of a father’s love until we mature. As we look back from adulthood, we see that a father’s love was providing for our needs as a child and also preparing us to be a mature person to be able to face the world as an adult. Then we realize what a father’s love really is.
There are many other loves we have in our life, but this story is about the 4th of July, so I will go on with it.
The love that we think about on the 4th of July is the love for our country. As we look back across the years, we can remember the great leaders: George Washington, Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, Nathan Hale and so many more that started our nation. We can think of the wars that have been fought to keep our way of life. But, let us not forget all the other men and women that gave their lives to keep our country free. Our country in return loves us. It gives us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Sometimes, if our leaders are not good people, then our country is not right. We as citizens have the responsibility not only to defend our country against aggression, but also to defend it against bad leadership.
As one of our late great presidents, John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
Fly your flag on the 4th of July and be proud to be an American.
Copyright 2020 Humble Roots, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
