Let's Get Physical

I know. It is the name of a not-so-spiritually-enriching song. But it is the words that come to mind when I think of the deep significance of what my family did yesterday. On August 16 we learned that our grandson due in December had died in utero. On August 18 our daughter delivered this precious little life. He was named Elijah Evan. We determined to mark his life on Labor Day weekend when our immediate family and his paternal grandparents would be present. How do you do a memorial service for a little boy whose life ended at five months in the womb? With just a few family members gathered in the back yard, how could we adequately mark the immense depth of the experience of love and loss? Words are powerful. God’s word is especially so, and there was plenty of that spoken and heard. But with such gut-wrenching pain, with such physically visible sorrow, how could we memorialize Elijah in a way that would be remembered and cherished? I realized in reflecting on what we did, we got physical! For Elijah’s memorial we participated together in some very physical ways.

Our son wrote a song for Elijah. Wow! As Elijah’s father said, “How many children have a song written for them?” This five-month-old, taken-before-he-was-born little boy does! This was such a physical expression of remembering. My son spent a week writing and practicing. He played it on his guitar and he sang it for them. His sister sang with him. It is called “Little Feet.” The chorus says, “Li’l Lijah was just too good for this world” and “his little feet never even made footprints in the dirt.” The songs speaks of our sorrow but also our hope that someday “we will see his little smile and touch his precious face.” It was a physical act born out of sadness and love and hope. We all were in awe. We all were in tears. It was such a physical experience. And the wonder of modern technology allowed my son to record and send the song for Elijah’s parents to keep.

Our daughter wrote a poem. It too was born out of sorrow and loss and hope. In her own reflection time she wondered how she could be so sad about a little boy she never saw. Then she realized she had seen him in her heart and mind. Her poem chronicled all the ways she had seen him. She had seen him in the joy in the faces of his mom and dad preparing to introduce him to the world. She had already imagined him playing with Laurel, our granddaughter born in July. She had imagined him visiting me and me scooping him up in my arms and not wanting to share him! She had already envisioned what future Christmases would be like for Elijah. And she had seen in her heart and mind her own child someday joining these cousins. Her poem was a very physical expression of how such a young and unseen life could create such a visible and heart-wrenching loss. We all “saw” Elijah with her, and as she read her poem we all physically mourned. Beautifully framed and mounted in an originally crafted work of art, the poem will hang in Elijah’s parent’s home, an enduring physical reminder of Elijah.

And we all planted something. On Sunday, September 4, in memory of Elijah Evan, I had ordered an arrangement containing seven separate plants for our church’s Communion Table. I had planned to pot each one to give to different family members in memory of him or to plant them around the yard. My daughter, Elijah’s mother, wanted to plant them. So at the close of our time of remembering, we did. What an incredible experience! Some of us took a turn of the dirt. Some of us helped to water. Under the careful and experienced guidance of Elijah’s paternal grandfather, each of us participated and watched as these plants were given a new lease on life. And two of them were planted next to plants from the memorial service of my father who died in 2006. Elijah’s plants right next to Great Grandpa Davis’—this was such a physical act of hope for all of us. The closing of Elijah’s memorial was very physical.

Through the song and poem written for him and through the plants given new life we will have constant and beautiful reminders of Elijah. These acts promote healing as well. We got physical. It was healing and it was very spiritually enriching.

Everyone has had experiences of loss. Many have known the loss of a little one like Elijah. What are the ways you or others you know have memorialized a loved one that has helped you to remember and to heal? Add a comment and let the readers know.

Taking Time to Thank a Veteran

Once again today I told my father’s story. A WWII POW story that continues to be written in the lives of his children and grandchildren. The story is a brutal and tender one. Full of the brutality of war and full of the tenderness of a man who rose above the brutality and became a person of grace and hospitality diametrically opposed to what he had suffered.

Each time I do the exhibit I make a point of greeting, introducing, and thanking the veterans who show up. A lot of them show up. They come from all branches of the military and from all kinds of service experiences. Pilots, engineers, medics, sailors all come with unique stories, and many of them are almost entirely untold. Some of them do not want to talk about what they experienced. Many do not think anyone cares. Some have never been asked. One of the hopes I have as I travel and present this exhibit is that folks will begin to pay attention to the stories in their families. Not just war stories but whatever the family story might be. Every family has a story.

One of the most profound lessons of my research and travel to better understand my father’s story is understanding how very much I have been shaped by his story. The Greatest Generation became parents whose WWII experience profoundly shaped families, culture and country. Hearing their stories helps us understand so much about ourselves. The stories of our veterans especially need to be heard, and they need to be thanked for their service and sacrifice. The WWII veterans are dying at a rate of one thousand per day now. We don’t have a lot of time to listen. We don’t have a lot of time to say thanks.

The very first time I presented my exhibit, a ninety-two-year-old veteran named John showed up in full Navy dress-white uniform. It fit him like a glove, and he looked like a million bucks. His entry was a show stopper. All heads turned. My beautiful twenty-eight-year-old daughter met him at the door and escorted him in. I interviewed him briefly, and the whole placed erupted in applause. His story was even more remarkable because he had remained married to the same woman for seventy-two years. (He had just lost his beloved wife four months previously.) He represents the faithfulness that so many of the WII veterans knew and lived. A faithfulness hard to find today.

Today I met a Vietnam veteran. Richard and his wife volunteered to help at the exhibit honoring my father. As soon as Richard came, I shook his hand and asked him what his service was. He said that he was in Vietnam for two years. I looked him in the eyes and said, “Thank you so much for serving. I am grateful.” Then Richard said something shocking. He said, “You know, I have not heard that very often. “ He paused and looked off into the distance and then added, “ In over forty years maybe ten times someone has thanked me.” How very sad this is. Whether we agree with the cause and circumstances of American involvement in any particular war, we can always thank the men and women who serve. Vietnam was a particularly thankless war. The veterans did not come home to ticker-tape parades and fanfare. They came home to protesters and draft dodgers who spit and jeered at them. It was a war that divided Americans, and the division was played out on national TV every night. But, nonetheless, men and women served and sacrificed. They ought to be thanked more than ten times in forty years!

The following is a letter from a friend of my brother’s, Danny DeArmis, after our father had died and after Danny learned about our father’s WWII POW experience.

Dear Ken,

They say that what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Truth is what you don’t know can hurt you. Thank you. Because of you, I shook his hand. I sat as his dinner table. I rode in his car (an adventure all its own!). I only wish I’d known enough to tell him “thanks.”

You introduced me to him. It was really no big deal to me at the time. Another old man, hard to listen to, hard to understand. He seemed to be preoccupied the whole time I was around him. I watched you interact with him and it seemed difficult and awkward. He bounced from subject to subject and person to person. And yet, when I looked deeply I could see more. He loved you. And his appreciation for you, his daughters and his wife, was deep. I watched him one day as you entertained a crowd in his hometown. He was proud, but not in a way that indicated surprise. He expected you to be at least as good as you were. He was sure of your success.

I wonder now about his secrets. I wonder how he suppressed his anxiety and fear. I wonder if the memories had faded, and pain worn off. Its no wonder that he could run a red light without fear. Its no wonder he could work quietly and patiently with his hands at his workbench.

Until recently, I didn’t know what people meant when they called his generation, the greatest generation. How does one come to that conclusion? Now I understand…they were the greatest generation because they were men and women, who choose service over self, sacrifice over gratification, future over present, and principle over peace. It was the greatest generation and Mr. Davis epitomized it.

I never knew about…

him being abandoned by his country…

the sixty miles he walked …

the prison he lived in…

the meals he missed…

the beatings he endured…

the fear he felt…

the loneliness he suffered…

the despair he experienced…

the chains he wore…

the hope he’d lost…

the debt he paid so I can enjoy my pursuit of happiness.

If only I had known all of this, I would have thanked him myself. What I didn’t know did hurt me…and cost me that opportunity.

Danny DeArmis

If you know anyone who has served in the military, take the time to learn his or her story. Encourage the person to pass it on to his or her children and grandchildren. And the next time you see a veteran, take time to ask when and where he or she served. Then take the veterans hand firmly, shake it, look him or her in the eyes, and say thank you. It may be one of a precious few times he or she has heard these words.