RED Shirt Fridays

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Last term, my female student worker observed that I wear red every Friday. It's very simple, but it's not my idea. My father worked with a bunch of prior military folks who all banded together each Friday to wear red shirts. RED stands for Remember Everyone Deployed. It's a simple thing they do to remind them of people elsewhere doing some heavy lifting in a way that's not too much in your face but that brings some espirit de corps not only to his work group but also to the military assets the organization supported. In some ways, it's similar to the poppy in the UK, but the poppy is worn less frequently, and it's an additional accoutrement attached to the rest of your garb and sold on top of regular shopping for special programs in favor of the fighting man. The red shirt is simple, and that's why it appeals to me.

At the simplest level, the red shirt serves as a way of remembering people. In particular, this observance remembers particular people- people who are elsewhere in dangerous places doing things to make our lives better. Specifically, this observance keeps its eye on military members, but even if you don't know anyone in the military, you do know people who put their lives on the line both literally or figuratively speaking to improve yours. Red, the color of blood, signifies at least in one way sacrifice. We are taught that those who lose their lives in the service of others have the highest degree of love, and when you wear red to remember them, you show you value their sacrifice. Other organizations adopt similar color schemes like Red Nose Day or Red ribbons, or what have you. It's a way to remember those who lose their lives so that we can find a better one for ourselves.

Wearing a red shirt gives you an opportunity to make an outward sign that is not obvious. A lot of people like to proudly proclaim what organization/movement they support. We frequently festoon ourselves with pins or brands or other signets so that people know what we advocate. Sometimes those outward conveyances attract people to us; other times, people assume based on something that they should shy away. I know people have decided based on what I share publicly to part with me permanently. However, wearing a shirt of a particular color without any other provisos besides the color and extent of color doesn't alarm anyone who doesn't know. Being vague as to pattern differentiates you from having gang colors. People who know in secret will recognize you openly, and people who don't know just know you wore a red shirt.

One of the best things about red shirt Friday is the way it provides for a chance to regularly show solidarity as and for a group. We all know about Casual Fridays or Pajama Day in school and similar things, and some people like to wear uniforms or camouflage which might be to show solidarity for military personnel, but we know that sometimes people do that in order to pretend and portend to honors they have not earned. Each Friday, members of my father's workplace proudly don a red shirt and show solidarity not only for the unit but for units of servicemen everywhere. Although those people may not see it, many of them know that's what's happening at home, and the show of support even unseen helps bolster morale.

Many people have fuzzy memories and short lived relationships with people. I see people with note cards, strings around their fingers, tatoos, patches, pins, ad infinitum, all of which they use to help them remember what is urgent and important. Now, you may not agree with our fighting men, but they are urgent and important to someone. They have family, battle buddies, units, neighbors, friends, and often lovers who think of them often and highly. The red shirt is an invitation to remember that there are people out there doing heavy lifting for you. It is said that only 3% of Americans serve in the military voluntarily. For them, it's a small thing, but if you are alone, cold, hungry, and under fire, it's probably nice to know that someone somewhere's thinking about you, remembering you, and showing solidarity with you even if they're not physically there. It's nice to be remembered.

Mourning People

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Normally, I am a morning person. By 9AM most days, I achieve more than many people do all day long. Each morning, I thank God for a good night's rest, for protection from intruders, and for my beagle. Last Christmas, I awoke and heard him snoring and thanked God for my first Christmas gift- that my beautiful beagle buddy was still there with and for me. It was a great morning. On my birthday this year, I awoke and found him curled up, for one of the last times, in a pile of my jeans beside the dresser waiting for me to wake. That was also a great morning. Mornings, however, feel much sadder than they used to be, and Friday mornings are worst. Most people look forward to Fridays, but each Friday morning marks another week since I last saw my beautiful brave beloved beagle buddy, and when I wake, I think about that last morning together. I also find that I cry the most on Friday. Yeah, I know men aren't supposed to cry. So sue me. I actually loved this dog. And I'm not the only person I know mourning. I walked in the building for work this morning and thought of all the other people around here who are mourning and who, consequently, called in sick to work this morning and others I know who are mourning those they lost. Just about everyone you really get to know changes your life, and every life around you changes according to opportunities, trials, circumstances, events, and other living things. When they change you for the better, and then they leave, you often mourn. Often, they just move away or cut you off, but when they also die, the mourning takes a different form. Everyone mourns, and everyone mourns their own things in their own way. How and why we mourn, when we are truly weak enough to be our true selves, tells us alot about ourselves and about those we watch mourn.

Mourning for people you love is part of life. Everyone and everything you know and like eventually leaves your life or is left behind when you die. Materials and bodies decay, and consequently eventually what was must give way for something else. Some people don't make or take much time for mourning, and other people seem to never get over a loss. Since you must lose someone or something at some time or another, most people acknowledge that there is a time for mourning, they just may not like spending time with you while you mourn. I think we know very little about how to help people mourn, and the only thing I can really offer is this: "you didn't always know what to say, buy you knew to listen, and that was helpful". Usually the degree to which we mourn is proportional to how much we value what we lose, and it helps to be able to talk about it aloud even if nobody has any useful ideas. In discussing them, we show that we still value them, and to what degree, and it may be that this helps us realize that they never really leave us per se. I will always carry part of the dog with me. I learned I was a dog person mostly because I'm allergic to cats and that I liked having a pet who considered me a god (dogs) more than I liked a pet who considered me a slave (cats). Maybe the worst thing was that I had a pet late in life. I mean I never intended to have one in the first place and ended up with beagles because of my ex wife, but if I'd lost a pet when I was younger, when my parents were there to shield me from the loss, when I could learn to deal with it, this one might have hurt a little less. At the very least, I learned that, if I get another dog, I'll lose him eventually too, and it changes what I plan to do with another dog if applicable so that parting is less sorrow.

Many people around you mourn. In the midst of my sorrow, I noticed that a wave of death and loss crashed around me. A department secretary died when her cancer returned, another secretary's husband died, and a friend of mine lost one of his inlaws. Just in the last few weeks, several people have died at church from cancer. Then there are people with wayward kids, with sick family, with financial struggles, with substance abuse problems, etc. It's interesting when people can see on my face that I'm sad. I can tell on their faces too, and I think they're surprised and relieved when I ask and they have an outlet. If we were supposed to face life alone, we'd all be on our own planet, but one of the major purposes for us here is to be with and for each other. My dog helped me when I was sad, and now others make an effort who also know loss, albeit of different kinds, and heartache, albeit for different reasons, and we feel less alone in our loneliness.

How we mourn shows us much about ourselves. Some people mourn a lost chance to spend time with someone and show they that they loved them. Other people mourn the loss because their life just changed forever in a way where they feel as if they died too, at least in part. Others don't seem to mourn at all. I don't pretend to know with certitude why, only that it's true that some people feel callous. Just because we don't see people mourn doesn't mean that they do not. We are taught to be strong and that mourning equates with weakness, and some people just sit silently and miss those they lost. Then there is a somewhat unconventional way to mourn. For years, I have told my sister that I don't want a funeral; I want a party with only desserts and a piñata of me (so that anyone who likes can take one last swing at me) filled with candy so that my death will send everyone home with sweet things. I think that's exactly the kind of eulogy my beagle would have liked. Whenever I was sad or bored or lonely, my beagle was there, and I know that he would not want me to be sad. If he were here, he would come and try to make me smile or laugh, because he was joy wrapped up in a beagle. Sometimes, when I suddenly feel calm, I wonder if he is there, especially in the mornings when I used to thank God each day that the beagle was still with me and I inexplicably become calm. He would want me to be happy. I sat Friday night and watched the videos I shot during our last week together; I'm glad I shot them. They remind me of good and tender moments together with a beagle I loved, and I am so very grateful that I captured some good memories of the greatest blessing God ever gave me in mortality.

This morning, like every Friday morning since 3 May 2019, I was in mourning. When I returned to my bedroom following my run, I caught a whiff of his scent. As I left for work, I paused briefly to look back at the carpet in the living room and glance up along the staircase, because that's where he would be when I left each morning, either resting or searching for the treats I threw around the house to distract him from following me out the door starting in summer 2017. It's so very odd to not see him in one of those places. Sometimes, he would look at me longingly, as if wondering why I had to leave, and it was very hard, especially in the last few months, to tear myself away and leave him for work knowing that I might not see him when I returned. That Friday night, I returned to find him dead, and it was the most painful day of my life. I know he's not a person, but I am, and I'm mourning him because he was part of me, my life, my day, my routine, and I will carry him with me wherever I go for the rest of my life, in my heart, and in the ways in which he changed me because he lived. I am still a morning person, and I look forward to the morning of the first resurrection, hoping for the restoration of ALL things, especially the things and people we knew and loved and mourned. Hopefully that will include my beagle whom I love, because that will be a great morning.

Honoring The Memory

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Most people handle a loss by moving on and replacing what they lost with something similar.  When their relationships fall apart, they find someone else to date, and when their pets die they go adopt a new one.  People seem insensitive. My beloved brave best beagle boy was incredibly sensitive to me. He didn't care what car I drove, only that I took him with me. He didn't care how I looked, only how I looked at him. He didn't care how much money I earned, only that I shared what I had with him. He didn't care where we were as long as we were together. He is quite possibly the greatest blessing God ever gave me. I still thank God each day for my Saturn and my beagle as I have for several years now each morning. I honor his memory. I felt God's love through how that dog treated me, and so I honor the memory of my friend by taking time to think about him, to focus on his contribution to my life, and of how he took care of me. It is said that we make time for, take pictures of and write about those things and people that matter to us. Well, I guess it's fitting that, in this current drought of scribblings, I write about and share pictures of a dog I loved and who mattered to me a great deal. Nobody knew more about my flaws, and nobody cared less, and that's why this feels like such a loss to me.

I sense a desire in most people for me to move on already. Most people blithely express sympathy for my loss and then ask when I'm going to get a new dog. I think it's a little early to replace him since I really loved him. Maybe that's because they didn't care about what they lost as much as I care about what I lost. You can't replace him. There will never be another dog like that. Not that I might not get another awesome buddy, but he was unique. I could not have found a better dog if I picked him out of a catalogue. He contributed so much to my life, to each day, to each week, to each season, to the holidays, in good times and in bad, on sunny days and in rain storms. He was there. I let him into my life, and in doing so I feel like I allowed the Savior into my life to provide what I needed and to use my beagle to touch my heart and feel of His love.

Very few people seem interested in or concerned with me. Well, I'm ok, thanks for asking, but I'm not fine at all. A huge part of my life simply ceased to exist. My female student worker asked me if I got some sun one week because I was red from crying, because I miss him. He absolutely loved me absolutely. He fought to stay because HE cared about me. My parents like to, to their credit, reminisce about positive happy memories. They know that helps. My mom understands that this dog was as close to family as you can get without being blood. Rarely does anyone ask if I'm ok. I'm just supposed to suck it up and soldier on without my best friend in the whole world. How would you feel if I told you to suck it up when you lost someone you loved? yes, I know he was just a dog, but he was MY dog, and he was there for 16 years, faithful to the end, and I feel the loss every day for some period of time or another. According to my fitbit I sleep all night, but I have only really rested once in the month since he died. I'm exhausted. He fought to stay because he was worried about me, because he knew that when he died I would be alone, literally. This dog took care of me, and I appreciate his concern for my welfare up to the end.

Some wonder why I don't move or toss out everything. I have a new hiking buddy who told me blithely that I ought to sell my house and move. Easy for him to say; he won't be packing up, finding a new place, or paying the mortgage. In fact, he's essentially a nomad himself, having not lived anywhere for more than a year or two since he finished college. I bought the house in 2010 in part for the dog. It had a dog door and a yard that was "enough" for him to stretch his legs, sniff around and explore when I got back to the house in the evening. The downstairs was all tile to make it easier to clean up after him. Yes, I have places in my house that remind me of him, and I have not disturbed some of them for now, because I feel like removing them shows I don't care about him. In fact, I printed a bunch of pictures, and I'll hang them this week or put the rest in an album so that when I feel like it I can look back at pictures of him that remind me of the good times and better times without having to turn on the computer and without seeing pictures that are not happy. This was our place. He's always welcome there as long as I'm there, and I want it that way. I like thinking about him, because thinking about him reminds me of the virtues of my beagle, of the love I felt from him in the days of trouble.

Growing up, they taught me at church that one of the most important things we could do was remember. Accordingly, I have a new day to commemorate- his birthday. I will always be grateful that my beagle was born, that my ex wife bought him for me, that my parents gave him a place when I got custody until I had a place for us, that we lived 8.5 years in this house together, and for the last two years, which might be the best two years of my life. I have no desire to move on, forget him, to move away, or to purge my life of signs that he lived. My dog will always go with me, in my memory, and in the ways in which I was changed by his presence in my life. For two years at least, I rose each day to happy noises of a dog who loved me stirring, and then I returned from work to find him greet me on the staircase, and I apologized to nobody.  I still do the things we did together, because I was going to do them anyway, and because doing them with him made them better.  I learned with certitude through him that life truly is greater when you share it with someone that you love.  Thank you, good buddy, for everything.  I'll see you soon.