GOD BLESS AMERICA

My mom used to tell me — often with concern — that I should try not to be so passionate about everything.

“It wears you down,” she’d say. “You care too much.”

She wasn’t wrong. But then again, my grandmother — her mother — used to smile and shake her head.

“That passion will make her a writer,” she’d say confidently. “Let her feel. It’s what makes her alive.”

When I was young, my mom said I wore my heart on my sleeve.
My grandmother would laugh and ask, “So what — would you rather she go sleeveless?”

Ah, the contradictions of generations.

And yet, both were right.
I am passionate. I do care too deeply. I’ve cried over books, gotten angry at news reports, and written poems at midnight that no one will ever read. But isn’t that what being human is all about?

As Independence Day draws near, I feel that familiar wave of emotion again. I read the tributes, the stories of young men and women who left home, fought in wars, and never came back. I see the black-and-white photos of soldiers with haunted eyes and hopeful hearts, and I can’t help but feel a weight settle on my chest.

It breaks my heart that such sacrifice had to be part of our story — that suffering was woven into the fabric of our freedom.
But it also fills me with a reverence I can’t put into simple words.

If my mother were still alive — she passed away nine years ago, at the tender age of 96 — I know exactly what she would say:

“I’m just glad you’re too old to join the military now. You always worried me.”

And she’d mean it. She knew how quickly I could jump into a cause, how fiercely I held onto what I believed was right.

She also knew I loved my country — fiercely, stubbornly, sometimes critically — but always with heart.
I may not always agree with who leads us, or what laws get passed. In fact, most of the time, I don’t.

But this is my country.

And just like with family, you don’t walk away when things get difficult. You stay. You speak. You hope. You vote.

Although let’s be honest — voting often feels like a gamble. We try to choose the right people. We cross our fingers. But politics is a strange beast. Promises are made. Then broken.
Power shifts. People forget.

Still, the one thing that never changes?

That flag.

Tattered, repaired, redesigned, reinterpreted — but always standing.
Always there, reminding us that freedom was never free, and never guaranteed.

So, as the Fourth of July approaches — yes, I say Fourth of July, not "July 4th" like it’s a meeting — I’ll do what I always do:

I’ll watch the parades.
I’ll hope the speeches make some kind of sense.
I’ll smile at kids waving little flags bigger than their heads.
And if a tear slips down my cheek, I won’t hide it.

That tear will be for the ones who never got to come home.

For the families who waited at front doors that never opened again.

For the young men and women who were too young to understand war, but old enough to die in it.

I’ll look up at the fireworks, and I won’t just see bursts of color.
I’ll hear echoes of cannons.
I’ll feel the rumble of history.
I’ll picture the soldiers returning — walking slowly, arms open wide, into the arms of those who never stopped waiting.

And I’ll whisper those familiar, humble words:

God Bless America.

Because this country — flawed and beautiful — still holds promise.
Because even when it falters, it still has hope.
Because we’ve come so far, and we’ve still got so far to go.

And because God knows…

We need every blessing we can get.