The Beautiful Death of an American

I remember everything. I don't have to dwell on the past in fact I'd rather not.

For example when I was a child I had some playmates, the children of our maid, Ivy Tillman. She did housework and cooked for my family. Though elderly, she had to take care of her 3 grandchildren, Wilma, Betty and Linda Sue because their mother wasn't able to do anything whatsoever for them.

Ivy's husband was also elderly but had to work in the hazardous logging operation in our small town. He cut down trees and sold them to the saw mill. He worked hard but wasn't paid much. They had no vices that I can remember. They loved each other greatly.

One day I was playing with Ivy's grandchildren at their home which was located in an old falling-down store building consisting of one big room where everyone ate, lived, and slept. It was a horribly poor place with the basics of life.

Talk got around that I was hanging out with the Tillmans, and my cousin Brenda decided to take a walk to see if it was true that I had lowered myself to playing with the Tillman girls who for all their virtue and sweetness were dirt poor.

As it happened my cousin walked by while I was outside with my playmates.

She looked at me with a superior air and said, "I'd be ashamed!"

Enraged with her because everyone knew how she felt better than everyone especially poor people because she was much better off financially and morally (& don't the two go together?).

She was a also totally pretty, popular high school girl.

I knew how she put everyone down and felt superior, and I didn't like her for it.

I said, "Yes I am ashamed of being your cousin!" And immediately I felt I had crossed the line and regretted it because she was my cousin!

I really adored her brother Junior who died in Vietnam in 1968 when I was 17 because as he told his mother when he signed up to go "someone had to do it." He willingly volunteered do his part.

As his mother received his body in a broken and grief-stricken spirit, she asked, "What did he die for?" She of course remembered what he told her but she hated the war and felt it was based on someone's foreign policy decision which she did not agree with.

There was nothing I could say. My heart was torn because I too was outraged at the war and the never-defined reason for it.

There is a memorial statue of my cousin on the Courthouse lawn. People knew him and they knew he died a hero though they did not exactly why.

Heroes are heroes because of a decision. His decision was to go fight a war at the risk of losing his life for the American Ideal which includes the belief that equality, fraternity (for we are all one family) and the Bill of Rights are the birthright of every American without exception to race, creed, religion or sex or sexual orientation!

If you love America, you love an idea which evolves and changes. It is not based on your skin color, you political beliefs, or where you come from. It is the belief that everyone has the right to pursue his or her own version of happiness with the least government interference possible.

My beloved cousin believed in that idea and gave his life for it. That's why I say his was a beautiful death. He died to perpetuate the American Ideal which transcends all differences.