Wilborg

Written By: Fred W.  Nagel

 

their ages and hometowns scroll down the silent screen.  It was painful, depressing.  Most

 

were very young.  I understood their patriotism and devotion to duty.  The same emotions

 

had been stirred in me, as a nineteen year old, during the Korean War.  Many with whom I

 

served would not come home.  Their birthdays ended almost sixty years ago.

 

Lately, it is sometimes difficult for me to sidestep the pitfall of pessimism.  Our world

 

seems fraught with , what appears to be, insurmountable problems: the scourge of AIDS,

 

international terrorism, the dangers of nuclear proliferation, the specter of global warm-

 

ing.  Nationally, there is rampant illegal immigration, increasing poverty and homelessness,

 

the mysterious epidemic of autism.  And, our ability to address problems of such magni-

 

tude seems diminished, our political system too broken.

 

Nancy tried to lift me from my funk.  It was, she reminded me, my birthday and time

 

for the “Big Water”.  I reflected on the Depression birthdays of my early childhood.  There

 

were no parties.  On birthday morning, I was kept in my room until called.  When brought

 

to the breakfast table, my parents and my sister were already seated.  A cupcake holding a

 

lit candle was on my plate.  There was a small gift, often a children’s book.  They sang

 

“Happy Birthday”.  It was simple.  It was intimate.  It was memorable.

WIBORG                                                                                                                 Fred W. Nagel

–  4 –

 

 

At the beach, it was a marvelous winter morning.  The air was still but sharp, the sun

 

brilliant.  We parked and strode down to the shore.  The ocean was calm.  Small breakers

 

curled upon the sand and rode up to our feet.  To the west, a bank of clouds draped them-

 

selves across the sky.  A shaft of sunlight beamed, cathedral-like, through an aperture in

 

their midst, painting a swath of color across the water’s surface.  A few sea birds ran,

 

staccato, along the water’s edge.  A gull floated. effortlessly, upon the air.

 

We looked down the shoreline.  Nancy stood before me.  I folded my arms around her

 

and we stayed some time in silence.  How often, I thought, for how many years, had I

 

looked upon this scene, captivated by this expanse of sea and sky.  Suddenly, then, it

 

seemed that I were seeing it anew; as if, before, I’d viewed it as one might an exquisite

 

painting, a luminous Cezanne.  I began to feel elated.  I was not seeing that which was

 

before me, I was truly living it.  I was not something viewing something else, I was it…

 

such an integral part of it, there was no separation, no division.  The sea, the sand, the

 

gull, the plovers, Nancy and I were one, sharing, in this small but endless space, an instant

 

of fleeting and eternal time.

 

I felt unbridled joy.  I was this living moment; fully conscious, free of all distraction,

 

exquisitely in touch with this complex, sometimes terrible, always wondrous thing that is

 

life.  I wished myself a Happy Birthday, gave thanks to my departed parents and the Great

 

Beyond.

 

As we left the beach and moved up from the shore, I noticed, in the sand beside me, the

 

paw prints of what must have been an exceptionally large dog.

 

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