I’ve never known a quieter Fourth.
No shells bursting in the sky. No firecrackers raising the hackles of our dog. Just a night where the occasional rattle and bang and boom was occasional indeed, brief ripples in a sea of silence.
And yet the stillness rang louder than any skyrocket.
It’s no surprise, of course. This is a summer where many people have seen enough fire in the sky already. With Colorado burning down day after day from wildfires, fireworks had become about as politically popular as renaming Mile High in honor of Al Davis. Maybe less so.
Shhh. This is a No Sparking zone.
Some disagreed, of course. Some always do. And I can understand. Fireworks have been an expected part of the day since John Adams. I have memories of watching the bursts from bat-inhabited golf courses, or tree-obstructed bedroom windows, or even from our own rooftop, the shingles made slippery by a protective hosing down against bottle rockets. (Mind that last step!)
So yeah, it’s a great part of the day.
But it’s only part of it.
Absurdly, my brain began to go back to Christmas, to a Grinch who decided stealing all the presents could steal the holiday with it. Anyone with young children in the house (or our Missy) can recite the results by heart:
He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
It’s still true. Douse every sparkler, shush every “1812” cannon. The day is still there, the freedom still as real. The symbol isn’t the thing.
And the symbol this year may be more potent than anyone expected.
What’s the day about, really? Not beer and explosives, fun though the combination may be. It’s about a people taking charge of its own future, about men and women and communities doing what they must to secure the day, however little they might like it.
It’s about a general who constantly wanted to come to grips with the British – yet knew his country’s only chance was if he kept his army alive.
It’s about those who risked “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”in grasping at a dream where failure meant the noose.
It’s about those who could leave family and home, or hold it together while others left, deferring what they wanted in favor of what was needed.
The Fourth of July has never been for wimps. Living the legacy means making tough choices.
And when we make those choices together, for the protection of us all, that’s a brighter light than any skyrocket could create.
There’ll be a day when the fireworks return, a day when smoke and flame can be replaced by “Ooh” and “Aah.” Maybe it’ll be twice as good, with two years of Independence Day budgets saved up. Maybe it’ll be the same show as before, with this year’s spending donated to this year’s fires, a drop in the bucket but a welcome drop all the same.
Whatever comes, the Fourth will come with it. And someday it’ll come with all the bells and whistles and Roman candles anyone could want.
Until then, we wait. Not out of fear. But out of care, out of duty, out of watchfulness for our friends and neighbors.
And even on a silent night, those can be heard loud and clear.