When I was a little, my father took great pride in flying a flag on a flagpole he’d built on our front lawn. On the metal pole, he inscribed a message of dedication, to his two daughters in memory of his father.

Our little fingers would help him carefully unfold the flag and – always making sure it never touched the ground – we’d raise it up the flagpole. My father taught us the flag represented respect, for those who served—and for those who served and never made it home.

The flag we flew was one given to my father’s father, when he immigrated to the United States and arrived at Ellis Island. Although I never spoke to my grandfather about this personally, my father has always spoken of how proud my grandfather was to be a U.S. citizen. As a house painter in New York City, my grandfather didn’t make that much money, though there was always food on the table and a roof over their heads, even during the Great Depression. Despite the poverty they lived in, I know my grandfather was grateful to live in a country with the freedoms he’d never enjoyed during his own childhood.

My father served in the Merchant Marines during World War II. In fact he was a doctor on the ship, a doctor with no formal training. He still loves to tell stories and reminisce about his time of service. His favorite tales are those that describe the more gruesome injuries he encountered as a ship’s doctor, and the misadventures of crew members which typically involved smuggled alcohol or women.

When I met Big Papa, I was surprised to find out he had a flag too. On Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and July 4, it flies in front of our house, the sole flag on the street and one of the few, if not the only flag, I see as I drive the streets in Seattle. It’s not a tradition that many continue to carry, or at least not where we live.

During the early months of our dating lives, Big Papa  told me about the many hours he spent creating and managing a website to honor the navy ship, USS Enterprise CV-6, that his father had served on.  We even went on a trip together to Corpus Christi, Texas to attend a reunion of men who served on that ship.

I loved meeting those fascinating men; they reminded me of my father, with their stories full of piss and vinegar, pride in their service and excitement still in their eyes as they retold tales of adventures on the high seas during wartime.

Big Papa’s father passed away long before we were a couple. I wished I’d had a chance to know him and hear him tell a few of his own stories. And I wish he had been able to see his son’s house, and know his son flies the flag, just as he did. He would have been so very proud.  I know I am, and Big Papa is too—we carry on the tradition of honoring those who served and the memory of those who never made it home.

Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

~Francis Scott Key, The Star-Spangled Banner

Take the road less traveled, Beth