donation or sacrifice?
it's time to give blood again tomorrow. being a rare A negative, every 56 days the red cross calls (pretty please) and i make a pilgrimage to the local bloodmobile. once there, if i am lucky, i get carl who can always get veins on the first try. the donation ritual concludes when betty hands me a raisin box.
since my body makes more blood, it will be a donation. but just that and nothing more.
not growing up in a military family, i didn't pay much attention or homage to memorial day until my cousin went to the middle east last year to join the 101st airborne division. he served dual roles in trauma-triage and psychiatry.
we alternately prayed and worried, waiting for a call either from him or from someone on his behalf. my cousin came home safely, but many others have not or worse yet, won't. seeing flags lining portland's waterfront yesterday brought a lump to my throat as i remembered his words before leaving. "many people ask me how i can join now when i have a wife and two sons at home. but for me the real questions is, 'how can i NOT go when i have two young sons at home?' "
in a most poignant scene towards the end of "band of brothers" we see soldiers, already having lost a lot of their own men, liberating a concentration camp. many local germans are still in denial of this camp's existence so the soldiers bring them in to help bury the dead.
sacrifice: the act of giving until there is nothing left, or at great personal cost.
i will stare up at the same stained glass windows tomorrow as the donation bag fills and i will see a chalice and loaf marking the supreme sacrifice. jim eliot said, "he is no fool who loses what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." no greater love has anyone than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. donation or sacrifice? here's to memorializing the difference.
since my body makes more blood, it will be a donation. but just that and nothing more.
not growing up in a military family, i didn't pay much attention or homage to memorial day until my cousin went to the middle east last year to join the 101st airborne division. he served dual roles in trauma-triage and psychiatry.
we alternately prayed and worried, waiting for a call either from him or from someone on his behalf. my cousin came home safely, but many others have not or worse yet, won't. seeing flags lining portland's waterfront yesterday brought a lump to my throat as i remembered his words before leaving. "many people ask me how i can join now when i have a wife and two sons at home. but for me the real questions is, 'how can i NOT go when i have two young sons at home?' "
in a most poignant scene towards the end of "band of brothers" we see soldiers, already having lost a lot of their own men, liberating a concentration camp. many local germans are still in denial of this camp's existence so the soldiers bring them in to help bury the dead.
sacrifice: the act of giving until there is nothing left, or at great personal cost.
i will stare up at the same stained glass windows tomorrow as the donation bag fills and i will see a chalice and loaf marking the supreme sacrifice. jim eliot said, "he is no fool who loses what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." no greater love has anyone than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. donation or sacrifice? here's to memorializing the difference.
Powerful piece! Thanks for posting this, and thanks to your cousin for serving.
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