Photo by Jim Pankey "WildSpirit"Jim's Photography can be found at Picasa and Fotothing
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Suggested prompt...
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__________________
Stand tall before the leaping flames,
With brothers you take careful aim.
You haven't come here for the fame,
No one needs to know your name.
So many lives depend on you,
To turn these black skies back to blue;
But when your job is finally through,
Do you really get your due?
Marc
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5 comments:
Stand tall before the leaping flames,
With brothers you take careful aim.
You haven't come here for the fame,
No one needs to know your name.
So many lives depend on you,
To turn these black skies back to blue;
But when your job is finally through,
Do you really get your due?
Nicely written Marc... bravo.
King Solomon looked down from his bench and asked which half of the child I would take. Although I wanted her whole, I would do without so that she may be complete. And as I choked back my feelings of dread and abandonment, I replied, "None."
I had resolved to pay my child support and watch my daughter grow up from five hundred miles away. I will watch from the bushes as she joins her friends for Indian Princess campouts. I will linger at the phone each night hoping she will want help with her homework. I will watch her stepfather dance with her at her first prom. I will watch when he walks her down the aisle to the man she loves. I will wait in the parking lot to hear the cries of joy at her first borns arrival. I will let her go so that she may be as complete as she can. I will sacrifice for her, because I am the only one who will, and I am the one expected to give all that I have and can so that she may have what she wants. Brave is giving yourself away so that those you love may have what they want, even if it is not right.
Paul Revered
The Purple Triangle-A symbol of Bravery
Wolfgang Kusserow was beheaded by guillotine in Brandenburg Prison on March 28, 1942. He was 20 years old.
On December 7, 1939, father of six, Gregor Whohlfahrt was executed by guillotine in Berlin's Ploetzensee Prison.
Thirty-four year old Johann Stossier was executed on May 7, 1944, in Sachsenhausen.
Helene Gotthold, 48 years old, wife and mother of two was executed by guillotine in Berlin's Ploetzensee Prison on December 8, 1944.
Each one of these individuals wore an inverted purple triangle on their concentration camp uniform and each one could have made the choice to walk out of the camp they were in; they did not. The word Brave is defined in each one of them and in their stories.
During the holocaust over 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were thrown into concentration camps because they refused to join the German army and spoke out against Hitler. It is estimated that between two thousand and five thousand members of this group died because they would not compromise their obedience or their faith to God Jehovah. Many were tortured and given the opportunity to walk out of the camps if they signed a paper renouncing their faith and supporting Nazi ideology; few capitulated.
Film Producer James Pellechia said: “Holocaust scholars are well aware of the danger of showing only the horrors of this era. If we ignore the stories of the resisters, we send the unspoken message that nothing could have been done, that the history could not have been different. The story of Jehovah's Witnesses shows that the Holocaust didn't have to happen. Humanity does have the capacity to stand up and speak out for what is right."
Brave standing up for what you believe in.
Brave is not compromising.
Brave is courageous endurance.
Brave is all those who wore the Purple Triangle.
Salynne ©2009
But my mother's brave.
She's an extraordinarily brave woman. I see the bravery she exhibits in the sacrifices she's made, the adversity she's overcome and in who she is and what she does now. She's connected with her past, works hard in her present and remains hopeful for the future.
I can't imagine my mother as a young woman, at my age. She was one of eighteen children, my grandparents were Irish Catholic, and grew up in the housing projects of Newark, NJ.
She was part of the punk rock scene when she was in her teens and early twenties. When she was nineteen, she had a one-night stand with a stranger at a concert, and found herself pregnant months later, not even knowing who the father was. Because my grandparents were Roman Catholic, they decided my mother would carry the baby to term and have a closed adoption.
I never asked my mother what it was like, what she was going through emotionally at the time because I was angry with her. The surfacing of my mother's past, the revelation that I have a half-brother who grew up and has a family of his own, is recent. A year and a half ago, the baby boy my mother put up for adoption thirty-six years ago contacted her because he wanted to know who his biological mother is. My mother hadn't even told my father, she claims she forgot, that any memory of her illegitimate child and his adoption was pushed to the back burner of her mind, and she was only consulting my father, my sisters and myself because she wanted us to tell her it was okay to talk to her son.
I couldn't help but lose respect for my mother. My anger was a combination of shock toward her behavior, the fact that I didn't know my mother at all, and a little hurt and resentment knowing I wasn't my mother's first child. An also, a strange feeling of rebellion against her because she had sex out of wedlock, when I had assumed that she would have saved herself, and for years felt I was being fed a covert message to save myself, as well.
My mother's actions, my mother's mistake made me irrational. I decided to lose my virginity to my boyfriend at the time and I regret it now, because it wasn't the right time, the right person, and my choice made me feel ashamed. I know now, a year after the revelation, that the shame I felt was probably amplified for my mother. She didn't love the man she slept with, and she didn't even know who he was. Because of her actions, she had to carry around her shame in the form of a visible, physical life form. My mother knew she was too young and too poor to take care of a child, so she gave him the opportunity to grow up and thrive with a family who could love and support him. I hope she's able to see what she did for him, that she made a mother's sacrifice even though she wasn't ready to become a mother.
Years later, after my mother and father were married and living in a housing project, they realized they didn't want me, or their future children, my sisters, growing up in the projects like they did. When I was three, my mother sent me to live with my aunt in an urban neighborhood until they were able to buy an affordable house. I wasn't abandoned, I saw my parents all the time, practically, and even at a young age I understood what my mother was doing, all she wanted for me. She wanted the best for me, the best she was able to give me, she wanted me to have a life parallel to the life she's had - one going in the same progressive direction, but crossing through different points along the way.
I'm not angry with my mother or her life anymore. I recognize her courage and I learn from her life. Her life, all she's been through, serves as an inspiration for myself and who I want to become. Thank you, Mom.
I don't say that enough. I want to make her proud, that's my way of letting her know I appreciate her.
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