COLORS

This past Memorial Day weekend my eldest completed his move a new apartment, the first place he rents by himself. It still fixes him a Carole King lyric apart, “So Far Away,” far from his mom’s heart desires.

But how can I continue to hold such selfish thoughts when so many moms and dads remember sons and daughters too young taken away from them in battles? And the battles continue to take some to heaven. For them we set up our flag on American holidays, so allowing the Deep Southern breezes to flap the colors smartly. 

“What are the colors on the American Flag?” I ask Buddy. How could he reply as his hands busied in waters swirling around breakfast plates and flatware clanked into the dishwasher. 

Task done and with a nudge, Bud recited, “Red, white, and blue.” My Maria daughter recited the pigmented symbolism, “Red is for blood (of the patriots), white is for Courage, Blue is for Truth.”

We cannot say that George Washington or Betsy Ross attached these meanings to the tri-colors of the flag. With a dearth of first hand eyewitness records, without text messages or You Tube uploads, historians have a hard time declaring Betsy Ross as the person who designed and stitched the first flag. But paintings by Peale and Trumbull affirm that during the battle the design settled into alternating stripes and blue upper right canton with a circle of white stars.

The meaning of the flag colors most historians attribute on Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress. Thomson tied the colors of the proposed Great Seal of America to the flag, 

The colours of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valor, and Blue, the colour [sic]. . . signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice.

These are the colors under which U.S. soldiers, present and past, served and reflected on too many battlefields.

My handsome father did not share much about his battles in the WWII Pacific Theater. Decades ago my siblings and mom flew to his native state to bury him in a national cemetery. He joined the many veterans laid to rest in the shadow of pillared monumental maps of Midway and other major battles. By Jesus' faith my children will meet him. By faith families will reunite in heaven.

Meanwhile, our family will let the colors fly June 14th.