Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
123
Recent Posts
- Try
- Becoming Brenda Starr
- Off Beat
- Scattered
- That’s It
- So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
- The Spoon
- Sciatica
- Sweetheart
- A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
- However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
- After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
- As with everything in life, balance is key.
- Slow down, you move too fast…
- Yeah, I know. I have issues.
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
Watching the News With Dad
My mom and dad's wedding picture sits on top of the entertainment center. Last night, I watched the president's speech and the coverage from Iraq along with them. Mom's expression never changed from one of girlish innocence, but Dad's eyes took on a look I recognized from living eighteen years with him.Suddenly, he wasn't an I-just-married-the-best-girl, got-the-world-on-a-string, happy-go-lucky Scottish immigrant. He was the man I knew, the one whose eyes welled up with tears during A Bridge Over The River Kwai and A Bridge Too Far, but who almost laughed when Ali MacGraw died in A Love Story.
The one who spent eight years in a Scottish regiment of the British Army, beginning at the age of seventeen and who, because of it, never graduated from high school. The one whose best friend was gunned down right beside him, the one who fought in both Northern Africa and in Sicily, the one my mother took care of for years during his recurring bouts with malaria.
The one who became an American citizen when I was a little girl, but who was never honored along with American veterans of WWII. The one who didn't expect to be honored.
The one who didn't want to talk about it, who fought to remember it, and who struggled to forget it.
I looked up at the wedding picture once more as anti-aircraft missiles began to explode over Baghdad, and heard my father's proud voice resonate with the one political speech that dominated our home when I was a child.
My eyes filled with his unwept tears, and my face became a bridge the rivers ran over. And I honored him.
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.
You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."
Winston Churchill, from his first speech to the House of Commons after being appointed Prime Minister, May 13, 1940.
Posted by Katy on 03/20/03 at 09:46 AM
Fallible Comments...
- Wow...I've missed your writing. I envy your memories of Dad................
-----Posted by Bridget on 03/24/03 at 07:09 PM - I envy yours, too. Our two experiences, I'm thinking, were very different, and worth comparing so we each get the whole picture.
Posted by katy on 03/25/03 at 11:47 AM
Page 1 of 1 pages
Next entry: Lay It On Me, Sean!
Previous entry: I Need A Cigarette
copyright 2011, ngenius media inc.
