Holding Vigil — Together

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Our new grandson William was born on May 25, 2025.

I dedicate this post to all our children and grandchildren who are trying to move forward with their lives.

“What I seek to convey,” Franklin Roosevelt said, at the beginning of an address to the seventh seventh Congress, is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained clear, definite opposition to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past.”

Indeed, in an earlier time a world war was fought to keep our doors open.

Now attempts are being made to construct a wall around the country.

It’s hard to describe how each of us feels at this time because

  • we are made to feel different
  • we have been set upon each other 
  • we are encouraged to view our neighbors with suspicion 

When will it end ?  
 ~ no one can say. 

What will we be left with ?  
~ no one knows.

How it will end ?  
~ only time will tell.

We all must determine how we best stake our claim to the future. Until then we watch and wait and do whatever we can, holding vigil — together.

Sarah Puckett passed on to me a poem by Alison Luterman that perfectly captures the experience of standing vigil.

HOLDING VIGIL 

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment.

the heaviness of it, like sitting outside

the operating room while someone you love    

is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs

eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine

which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,

waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out 

in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down

to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels

as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about

is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat

asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.

I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,

the fact that we are all waiting in the same 

hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,

and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?

Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,

as families do, and bringing each other coffee

from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it

while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,

which is also what happens at times like these,

and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,

heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,

in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep

of human history, a soap bubble, because empires

are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations

die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens

all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,

your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator, 

and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about

when she wakes at three in the morning,

cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,

it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day

and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food, 

cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,

and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls

and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer, 

the icebergs for the love of God—every single 

blessed being on the face of this earth

is holding its breath in this moment, 

and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin, 

then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it

we all just have to live through it, 

holding each other’s hands.

We grasp each other’s hands tightly in this moment of confusion — for we know not what the morrow will bring.

What we do know and what we can have faith in is that a way forward will reveal itself and we can safeguard for this next generation what prior generations held in sacred trust for us.

So let us all pray Roosevelt’s observation will manifest itself in our time and the words of Emma Lazarus, inscribed on our Statue of Liberty, will shine forth as beacon to the world.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Just a thought…

Pat