A Pledge of Allegiance to Purple Hearts

The clouds hang heavy and thick, low and caving.  Occasionally they pause, the droplet-tears of their soft weeping kissing our shoulders, our necks, our arms.  We are the ones that survived to remember.  We are the ones who carry them in our hearts.  Thunder booms overhead, a Father both holy and mighty, mourning losses so great only He could know their full measure.  A slammed door in the heavens and a subsequent roar�"-the sun is shut out on this day, the anniversary that marks a shredded heart that He never quite escapes.  And we thought we were torn to pieces.

Purple.  A fitting color for today, though the sky waves its own grey flag.  Courage, bravery, perseverance, heart, selflessness, loyalty…  These are the colors so many men and women proudly showed twelve years ago today.  They wore them as they gazed out the window, breathing their last with dignity.  They wore them high in the sky, adamant that they would not let this threat of violence win, even in death. No, not they!  They wore them as they knelt on floors wet with tears of fear, holding close both strangers and sons and anyone in between. 

At about this very time, chaos had already been unleashed in one of the world’s most recognizable and most prominent cities.  In it’s wake came fear and uncertainty, the undertow heavy with terror.  Many people believed this to be one nation, under God, indestructible�"-upholding Liberty and Justice forever…  But we saw destruction that day.  We felt it in the very core of our being, equally burning into the soul of both individual and nation.  Yet even as this shook us, we were seared far deeper with purple hearts.  And in that moment, we were truly indivisible.

As our liberty was challenged, we immediately demanded justice�"-not the vengeance of war but the righteous right to claim our own.  We stormed no desert, but instead charged into toppling towers and collapsed campuses.  We defended the justice that we would not die forgotten, whether janitor or manager, fireman or layman, boss or lost.  We would not leave ourselves unburied, hearing echoes and seeing glimpses but never finding the closure of knowing the truth.  We would protect our right to live as brothers and sisters of one race, one heritage.  Even if it risked tattered threads, our tapestry of red and white and blue would still wave.  

Embodying all that was given on that day, it flies as proudly as at half mast as it does at full, a symbol that we the people wore purple proudly that day.  We were, in that moment, One Nation, Under God, Indivisible�"sacrificing freedom and defending justice so that we all could have a chance to live even a few minutes more.  One great purple heart beat in every one of us that day; a single brave bloodline flowed through us all.  And we shall never forget. 

Author's Note

In memory of September 11, 2001, written on this year's anniversary of the event.