December 7, 2023

The Thoughts

The grass is not supposed to be cut on December 7th.  Not in Chicago.

But whether it’s climate change or just a weird, warmish day, we did mow the lawn on this December 7th. Actually, it was not really even so much to shorten the blades of grass but rather to mulch the leaves. The leaves which fell in October and should have been raked in November.

Maybe we got attached to them though they aren’t even our leaves. They used to live in trees in other yards. But when they fall into our yard they become ours.

Until they had to go.  Shred them and give them a permanent winter home in the grass.

How many young Americans used to mow the lawn and thought about those warm days back home and how December 7th felt like a summer lawn-mowing day back home because they were in Hawaii where it is always a summer day. Even in December.

And then the attack.

The sky filled with the beginning. And then the end.

Nearly 2,500 Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor. One-hundred and twenty-nine Japanese died, too.

Think of someone sitting by their radio on that Sunday and hearing the news of the attack and wondering if their….had….been….killed….

And then they looked out the window at the grass. And wished it were yesterday. –TK