Dusting off the book cover, sitting back into your chair running your hand through and pulling your hair back to as if to straighten your memory, you look into the eager eyes of your Grandson and prepare to answer one of the greatest questions he’d yet offer. Papa, where were you when the world came down?

For a second you ponder the days and nights of worry and concern, for in the emotional memory pictures pass across your field of vision. Flashes of mystery, fear, revelation and impatience remind you of the days when the world stopped making sense and what order was to be found came from within. The days when those things we had taken for granted caught up to us and we found ourselves fighting for the simplicity of a normal American Life.

The coffee tastes bitter but dark, warm and creamy as your tongue began to digitize the words. You hesitate not for fear of mistake but in the realization of importance, how desperately essential this discussion could become. A deep breath, another sigh and his fidgeting tells you that, to him a lifetime has gone bye waiting upon your response.

You begin with what had been forgotten, for in order to preserve our Freedom we first needed to remember what they were. You see we had lost sight of the price of complicity and acquiescence, giving way to comfort when the maintenance of such crucial things like Liberty, Justice and a way of life demanded struggle. “The words sound right when you say to him, “We forgot who we were”. And from that one small memory the truth emerged to fill his waiting wonder with the truth of how we survived the loss of our True identity.

Truth, is what is lost when all seek their own fulfillment. For someone must lie in order for everyone to get their own way. And in the loss of truth trust and hope diminish for who may count upon the certain when all must be questioned in order to survive? We had become separated from the foundation of God’s established footing. The basis of all understanding that we once found assured, now absent, left us reeling for explanation and wisdom as they fled with a sense that had once been called common that was now in short supply. We had forgotten in seeking God we found the tools of discernment and clarity without which we were now left to our own understanding. Some men had a dark view of this life and in that consuming dark we nearly lost it all.

For a moment you realize it is good to have the danger of loss or for that the matter the fragility of life which somehow makes the fight necessary. When nothing is precious life simply passes bye. Looking into those young eyes once you remember why you battled finding courage to defend those you found dear and the world, the life, the breath you held so dear. In our complacence we had treasured all things but that which was most important the fact that life itself is its own meaning.

You surprise yourself in memory of the aspects of Independence, liberty, freedom and the American Resistance to tyranny. The story flows as you remind yourself of a path worthy of our travels and you see his excitement as you tell him the numerous opportunities where we nearly lost it all. You see it matters and those things that truly matter are the verve of life, the joy hidden among the normal, the fact that vanilla is delightful in its simplicity and chocolate divinely complex.

Now came the difficult part where you had to explain your own struggle with hatred. Hatred of the faults and wrinkles of other men. You painted a picture that sat strongly on your empty stomach reminding you of how you once believed that other men were wrong and you alone right. You once believed men inequal. Not something you were willing to admit easily, especially in explaining now to this young man your recalled the dangers of that self reflection. For in the establishment and rigidity of our difference we found the seed of our own destruction. In our darkened hearts we believed ourselves right and them wrong a position from which no accord his found. How we found our way beyond that day required a return to our beginning. Not the beginning of a nation though in those proceedings we viewed the same truth, a return to our creation at which we realize all were created by the same hands of God.

Your forgave yourself and the ugliness passed from within you taken thankfully by God’s workmanship replaced with a respect for creation in finding relationship with God. The wounds long ago had healed leaving precious scars as battle reminder for most wars are fought on the broad battlefield internally without the shields and swords of war. You became a man prepared for liberty as it has always required that contrition as it demands equal regard for your fellow man’s hope and dreams. Without equality all men perish for preservation of their singular desire. Absent willing, volunteer surrender of self actualization at the expense of our neighbor, liberty remains beyond our grasp. For these are the things of evolution, where man puts aside himself for the sake of fellow man.

The smile upon his face told you that you’d achieved a victory. Understanding showed its light upon his cheeks and for a moment you saw the man to come, contemplating the complexities of his own existence. You saw the questions forming upon his brow and thanked God for the chance to share with him how precious a treasure it has always been to be an American. Taking a sip, you whet your mouth in excitement of conversation to come.