D-day, endings and beginnings…

 Yesterday was D Day.  One of my patients, who has since passed away, was on Omaha Beach that day. He recounted to me when I met him that he remembered being on the transport heading to the beach.  The soldiers said a prayer as they beached, all believing that they probably would not survive the day.

He told me, he woke up the next morning, surprised.  Every day after that if someone asked him how he was - he would say “Every morning, I wake up surprised”.  He survived to come home, marry, have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren…he was eternally grateful.  

He was part of the group of veterans invited to the D Day ceremony in 2019.  He brought me the permission slip, medically clearing him to go. He was 95 - his health was fair.  My initial thought was, should I clear someone this elderly to go across the world for several celebrations.  However instead I asked him 2 questions. 1. Did he want to go?  (yes he did). And 2. If something were to happen and you were to die over there would you be ok with that risk? (He said that he had lived a wonderful and full life, and would love to go back to see France).  I signed the paper, and he went. 

He had a scrapbook of that trip - I have a picture of him showing off the memories from a newspaper article 5 years later.  He died a few months short of his 100th birthday.  I will never forget him and every D-day I think of him and how so many died on that beach.   This patient of mine was the last D-day veteran in the region before he passed. 

So yesterday, I went to a family wedding in Bedford, VA.  Bedford is a little town in the mountains of south western Virginia. During WWII the town sent 20 young men into the war.  19 of the 20 died on Omaha Beach.  It is the reason that the town is the home of the National D-day memorial. There were a lot of memorial attendees in the town yesterday, remembering the day that began the ending of the war. 

As I arrived at the wedding I was struck by the fact that in a town known for an ending, I was about to attend a celebration for a couple experiencing a new beginning. 

Life goes on.  Bad things happen in the world, and good still exists.   Sometimes you need to look hard, beyond the oligarchs and political players - beyond the manipulation by bad actors using bots to create division and strife - and see that light still exists.  Our survival depends on not letting the darkness take the light.