Friday, November 12, 2021

The day after Veteran's Day 2021 / Does anybody really know what time it is? / A time for peace, I swear it's not too late


This year, as Veteran's Day approached, something moved me to let go of most of the things I have carried with me since I met R in my senior year of high school when we were just 17 years old. I realized that those things had finally made their way to my heart and that I didn't need their physical presence anymore, taking up an entire shelf in my hall closet.  Notice that I said "most of the things."  I did keep a few things but made an open space in my shelves and in my life, 20 years after R wrote me a letter saying, "Please take all my love and go on with your life" and 13 years after I was able to say goodbye to him before he died in a VA hospital. 

During 1970, when R served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam as a helicopter mechanic, he and his friends listening to music on a daily basis and especially liked Chicago's "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"  

As we went through the time change this year, I remembered that song amidst the confusion in Zoom rooms where support groups comprised of people from time zones all over the world meet in a timeless and timely space.



To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late

(Pete Seeger)


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Remembering that R found Veteran's Day to be one of the most difficult days of the year.  What he wanted, above all, and found so elusive was peace of mind and heart and soul.

 

5 comments:

Pixie said...

I love that Pete Seeger song.

My dad survived WW11 but it killed something in him, the soft place that children need, to know they are loved and safe, or maybe he never had that, even before the war. I'll never know.

am said...

Pixie -- As I was writing this post, I thought of your father whom I think of as a kindred spirit to my R.

Anonymous said...

We humans are a broken species. We can't ever seem to recognize our oneness, and so we have to declare war over differences and power. Will we ever heal? I don't think so. We have loved people who have fought these wars, who have been heroes and who have been broken.

37paddington said...

I have always loved that Pete Seeger song. Some people climb inside our hearts and live there forever more. Perhaps they have always been there, even before we resumed our acquaintance in the current time and place. R is certainly that for you. It moves me, the constancy of your love.

Joared said...

So many lives forever altered by the ravages of war.