Forty Years Of Waiting

Next week, we are traveling to Washington,DC and I'm really thrilled. I've been to this city which is rich with history, culture and politics three times. During each of my visits, I was able to experience much of what makes this city so unique. When I was 13, our church group stayed in the basement of a host church, visited our state senator, sat in on a session of congress, absorbed the ceremonial and somber attitude of Arlington National Cemetery and marveled at the marble likenesses of Lincoln and Jefferson. At 16, my experience was centered around the many buildings of the Smithsonian and visiting friends in a nearby suburb. My best memory of that vacation had to be the landing on the moon. All of Washington paled after Armstrong and Aldrin gave that most memorable of performances from a quarter million miles away. And as a young mother of 20, we stayed at Quantico Marine Base where a high school friend and her husband were stationed, while visiting a frigid Washington Monument. This time it was a different experience at the Cemetery. That one brilliant flickering flame at the Kennedy graves has been burned into my mind ever since. Still, there is an air of excitement for this trip. This time, it's the cherry blossoms that will have my attention. These flowering trees were a gift from a Japanese city in 1912. We responded with flowering dogwoods in a splendid show of hospitality and to promote the idea of one world. This time, my husband and I will stand with others in hushed reverence at The Wall to commit to memory some of the 58,000 names that we'll find there. It will be a good trip.