For me it was a poignant video moment from the hundreds we have witnessed from Ukraine in the last two weeks. Perhaps you saw it too. A father and son walked hand in hand toward a town or city. The son was about four or five years old and was wearing a yellow parka or slicker of some sort. The father was in his late twenties or early thirties. He looked over the head of his son as three or four adults passed by going the opposite direction. Those individuals were carrying backpacks or some type of luggage. Our small family of father and son carried nothing. The video footage lasted about four seconds, but the image spoke the language of this war. What do you say and what are you thinking in what may be the last walk with your son?
My thoughts flew back to the happy memories when I walked hand in hand with my father as we shuffled along through the golden leaves of a bright autumn day in Circleville, Ohio. Circleville was the home of the Circleville Pumpkin show and we walked from where we parked our car on Washington Avenue to Main Street and turned right where parade officials were lining up the floats for the afternoon parade. For me that corner of Washington and Main was magic. Great piles of leaves and brightly decorated floats greeted us along with the aroma of spiced tea, coffee, chocolate, elephant ears, minced chicken sandwiches and pumpkin pie. It was five years after the end of World War II. I was five years old and one of the first baby boomers, a part of the magnificent class of 1945 and a happy recipient of the blessings of peace.
In springtime my focus shifted to Newark, Ohio the childhood home of my mother. On Sundays our family walked a block to church on Western Avenue a street lined with cottonwood trees. It was springtime, and the Cottonwoods dispatched millions of white cotton-like wisps to greet little kids walking to church. The cotton wisps covered lawns and parked cars and on windy days it looked like a snowstorm. I walked hand in hand with my grandmother and I knew from the earliest memories I was not an ordinary grandson. There was a warm and wonderful connection with Grandma Cora that I did not fully understand until much later. My grandma’s eldest son, my uncle Mark died in the last months of the war. I was born six weeks after it ended. I did not discover until much later in life that my grandma Cora saw me as the replacement for the lost son.
My father lived a good life. He was the best man I ever met and although he was almost 92 when he died, all the earlier joys and happy times did not make it easy for me. It was a little past 9:30 am and I and my dad were in his hospital room alone together. I moved his oxygen mask away from his face and bent down to speak into his right ear while I nervously watched the numbers plummet on the oxygen monitor on our upper left. I spoke eight words and he four. My dad and I both knew it was our last conversation. It was one of the shortest conversations in my life and simultaneously it was the most dramatic and most intimate. Be it physical, emotional or mental, most of us will take a last walk with a loved one.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are now taking that last walk. Much of this might have been avoided had the U.S. leadership not botched the exit and abandoned thousands of friends in Afghanistan. Now, the world watches Taiwan. Biden stubbornly hangs on to the notion of “no oil from here” and begs oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Are we all now in agreement that Biden cannot distinguish friends from enemies? This might be the last walk for the United States.
My thoughts flew back to the happy memories when I walked hand in hand with my father as we shuffled along through the golden leaves of a bright autumn day in Circleville, Ohio. Circleville was the home of the Circleville Pumpkin show and we walked from where we parked our car on Washington Avenue to Main Street and turned right where parade officials were lining up the floats for the afternoon parade. For me that corner of Washington and Main was magic. Great piles of leaves and brightly decorated floats greeted us along with the aroma of spiced tea, coffee, chocolate, elephant ears, minced chicken sandwiches and pumpkin pie. It was five years after the end of World War II. I was five years old and one of the first baby boomers, a part of the magnificent class of 1945 and a happy recipient of the blessings of peace.
In springtime my focus shifted to Newark, Ohio the childhood home of my mother. On Sundays our family walked a block to church on Western Avenue a street lined with cottonwood trees. It was springtime, and the Cottonwoods dispatched millions of white cotton-like wisps to greet little kids walking to church. The cotton wisps covered lawns and parked cars and on windy days it looked like a snowstorm. I walked hand in hand with my grandmother and I knew from the earliest memories I was not an ordinary grandson. There was a warm and wonderful connection with Grandma Cora that I did not fully understand until much later. My grandma’s eldest son, my uncle Mark died in the last months of the war. I was born six weeks after it ended. I did not discover until much later in life that my grandma Cora saw me as the replacement for the lost son.
My father lived a good life. He was the best man I ever met and although he was almost 92 when he died, all the earlier joys and happy times did not make it easy for me. It was a little past 9:30 am and I and my dad were in his hospital room alone together. I moved his oxygen mask away from his face and bent down to speak into his right ear while I nervously watched the numbers plummet on the oxygen monitor on our upper left. I spoke eight words and he four. My dad and I both knew it was our last conversation. It was one of the shortest conversations in my life and simultaneously it was the most dramatic and most intimate. Be it physical, emotional or mental, most of us will take a last walk with a loved one.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are now taking that last walk. Much of this might have been avoided had the U.S. leadership not botched the exit and abandoned thousands of friends in Afghanistan. Now, the world watches Taiwan. Biden stubbornly hangs on to the notion of “no oil from here” and begs oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Are we all now in agreement that Biden cannot distinguish friends from enemies? This might be the last walk for the United States.
Roland Lane, March 20
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