To Fireworks and Freedom

I choose to celebrate July 4^th because I know I didn’t get here on my own. I was born into a situation that makes me one of the world’s richest and most free human beings. My parents were born into it, too, even my grandparents, although they didn’t feel so rich and free, given what the Great Depression put them through. Still, they were free enough to travel from Kansas to Illinois to California in search of work back then. That’s a freedom of sorts.

 

My great-grandparents, as far as I know, were born on American soil. On both sides of the family, the tree has lost branches—missing fathers, parents who left their small children with a family in Kansas and continued on in their covered wagon, never to return. I have no idea who my distant relatives might be.

 

I do know that my father’s great-grandparents came over from England in the late 1800s. I’m reasonably sure that no one on either side of the family was part of any European aristocracy—or if they were, they lost their money before any of it could trickle down to us descendants. Some of our people fought in the Civil War alongside Ulysses S. Grant, but, to my knowledge, no one fought in the Revolutionary War.

 

Yet here I am. My forebears landed here whenever they landed here, and they worked hard and bought property and reared children. A great-grandfather died of coal-mine-related illness, and a grandfather was partially crippled by polio. My father held a blue-collar job until diabetes took him at age fifty-seven. The women were stronger, as women often are, and my history is filled with widows old and wise.

 

But we’re here, in America. Both grandmas worked in ammunitions factories at one time. During war-time, the women filled the factories, and they worked hard, but they could earn a living while their men were away at war. Today our young men and women go off to war; they do this of their own will, are not forced into service by government decree. The rest of us are free to look for our livelihoods and to take care of our families as best we can.

 

But we are here, in America. We suffer from illness and crime and poverty and injustice. But I can say whatever I like about those who hold office. I can criticize the government—I can even start an e-mail campaign to have someone impeached, for heaven’s sake! I can do this, because I was born in the United States of America.

 

I can scheme and plan and come up with any number of perfectly legal ways to attend college or grad school, to purchase a home or a car, to start my own business.

 

And I can read about what is happening out in the world—through newspapers, alternative magazines, the Internet. I can pick up a phone and call someone in another country. I can keep my money in a bank and get to it when I need it.

 

Anyone who knows me at all will tell you just how much I criticize government in this country and just how little I trust corporate America. There’s a hell of a lot that’s wrong here, and I will screech about it until things get better.

 

But I will never forget that I am here, in the United States of America. I can speak and dream and learn and work. If I get into trouble, I can also get attorneys to help me. If I am in danger, most likely some form of law enforcement will show up and protect me or an ambulance will transport me to safety and help. If I’m down on my luck, any number of charitable organizations will help me find food and shelter. And I can walk into a church somewhere and find another human being who will pray with me. We don’t have to whisper our prayers, either. We can stand out on the street and pray them right out loud if we want.

 

I hate war, I really do. I know that this country had a very bloody birth and that people all over this planet at this very moment are fighting other bloody battles. Some of those people are trying to get the freedom I experienced before I was old enough to walk or talk. They were not born into it, and for some of them freedom is a dream they will die with.

 

I hope that in this next century we will finally learn that warfare is obsolete and that people will be freed not through bloodshed but through community and collaboration. I hope that the national anthem for the next country set free won’t have anything in it about bombs bursting in air.

 

But I must celebrate July 4^th because—however the freedom was accomplished—it was mine on the day I arrived in this world. This freedom shaped my family and my small hometown in Kansas. This freedom has shaped me, and I am a richer, better person for having known it this half-century I have lived.

Comments

[Marcia Z Nelson]

July 4 is particularly meaningful to me as Independence Day. Have a blast, Vinita.

[Julie]

Thank you for this eloquent post, Vinita. I haven't actively enjoyed the 4th of July for years, even though I'm so thankful for being able to live in this wonderful and flawed country. I don't like fireworks (they scare the schnauzers) and usually go to bed early with a book. :) But you have made me think about celebrating in a more mindful way. All the freedoms you wrote about are amazing when you really ponder them. Happy Independence Day to you and yours!