Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day… Normally I don’t do anything… We as a family just have never paid much mind to Memorial Day. Both of my parents were in the army for several years and even when my mom’s husband was in, we still never really did anything for it.

However, this year, I’ve gotten a new perspective, new information, new insights, new views from the outside, I’ve watched people become overwhelmed with emotion as Memorial Day affects them deeply due to losing people and I see a deep devotion in a friend of mine who is also in the army…

I think partially due to being involved in massage, I feel like I’ve become more deeply connected to people’s feelings and struggles even though I don’t know them, or even never knowing them or still don’t know them… When people are struggling with everything they’ve been through so much that we have got 22 suicides a day… I don’t handle suicide well anyway and to hear that breaks my heart. My partner pointed out to me the other day, he was saying that they count the deaths from battle, but they don’t count the suicides that occur due to those wars so essentially we are adding on approximately 22 deaths per day…

To hear the mass numbers of people that died within the first hour of battle… For example, the Battle of the Somme in 1916 one day… ONE day… 60,000 casualties…. 60,000 in one day… That stopped me in my tracks when I heard that today… As far as I’m finding that first day, they are figuring 20,000 of those were deaths. And again, from what I’m finding there were approximately 1,120,000 casualties from that war.

During the Iraq War 4,500 U.S. service members were killed and 32,220 were wounded; in Afghanistan, 2,165 have been killed and 18,230 wounded and again, not counting suicides…

Yesterday (now Saturday instead of Sunday) I was at a Memorial Day gathering and they listed off the number of deaths starting at WWI to current day and I think it finally settled in how many wives, husbands, sons, daughters, brothers and/or sisters and friends weren’t going back home… How many families had to hear that heart-wrenching knock on the door…

Maybe it’s striking a deeper chord with me because of my partner who is currently deployed, thinking of how I would feel if something happened to him… Thinking that even though we haven’t been in touch for the past 12 years or so and just reconnecting a month ago, the thought of anything happening to him… And if I feel this way, I can’t even begin to imagine the pain of the other families… Nor the pain of the men and women who are losing their friends there in combat and even though they are there, can only do so much…

So, I guess, all this, for me, all these years that I’ve been living in my own little world, aware, but not educated, not informed… I have a new found respect for our military, for our veterans and for those we have lost… My heart goes out to those families… As far as I’m concerned, this line for me starts here… As I become informed and no longer ignorant, I will continue to inform, I will continue passing on the memory of these brave men and women and everything they have sacrificed for our country.

They deserve to be remembered… I hope if nothing else, this will open new eyes for others…

I’ve always known the sacrifices that these men and women make, themselves, their families and friends… I’ve watched the army wife struggle with her husband being deployed and the joy of him coming home safely… It’s not only a sacrifice on the person making the decision to join, but their family and friends also make that sacrifice as well… Especially if they are encouraging and supporting the person joining.

As an outsider, it’s rough… It’s time to reach out to those we can affect…

God Bless,

Jessica

(If any of my information is wrong, I apologize and please feel free to kindly correct me or add on. I am still learning myself and am more than willing to accept information. Thank you!)

(I’m also half asleep too… I didn’t think this was going to take me 3 hours to write up trying to make sure I had the right numbers and whatnot… It’s 2:45 a.m… So again, apologies if it seems a jumbled mess…)

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A Lesson From Muscles

 

So, I was sitting in church for the first time in what felt like forever this last Sunday… Our Pastor made a comment about the church body and some times the hand needs to reattach to the arm to get things done, or check in with the arm. Thing is though thinking about it… This goes for so much more than just the church body and from an Anatomical stand point… Yes, I’m going Anatomy and Physiology on y’all… But here’s the thing.

In an arm, in the hand… You have your muscles, something to blow your mind, the Biceps (Biceps Brachii) don’t even attach at the arm there, they attach to the scapula and to the forearm… They don’t attach anywhere on the upper arm. Biceps Brachii and Brachialis both are located in the upper arm, but attach to the forearm, however they alone aren’t going to flex that elbow of yours… They need the help of the Brachioradialis which is located in the forearm but attaches at the upper arm. And, all those little muscles that move your fingers, those are attaching at your elbow. Aside from the Extensors and Flexors of the fingers, so back to just arm muscles, if one of those three muscles quits working, you can say bye-bye to moving that sweet elbow of yours… Or, even if they don’t work enough and are only working a little, all the other muscles have to pick up that slack and work harder which in turn, stress out the muscles, those ones get fatigued and then once again, you are back to not moving that elbow…

On the same note, if your fascia below your skin gets pulled tight, it doesn’t just affect skin elasticity, it affects your muscles, which affect your bones, which affect your organs, which consist of your heart, your hormones, your liver, kidneys, EVERYTHING… All do to a tiny little twist of fascia at the surface…

So what does this information have to do with a working unit? Be it a family, a group, community, congregation or whatever. Point being, if we become unattached, or lazy, or unproductive, careless, and the like, a group wont maintain a proper working order. Others will get stressed, things wont get done. In order to have a healthy working relationship, we must learn to stay Interconnected and working together.

And here’s another thought for you, Phantom Limbs… If you’ve had an amputation, or know someone who’s had an amputation, you’ll likely have heard about the Phantom Limb, which, from my knowledge of them… The body’s got a hardwired map of itself in our brain, so the brain still senses things and tries to use them even though they aren’t there.

Where am I going with this? Here’s where… We should be that tightly knit together that we notice when something isn’t right, or when someone is missing.

Jeez… I was talking to a friend today and he told me that military suicides are numbering at least 20 per day.

Maybe they had support, maybe they didn’t, but you know what? In general when someone disappears and you don’t bother to check in on them, we don’t know what that person is going through, they could’ve felt rejected, or feared rejection, and if we don’t respond when a person disappears, then yeah, maybe we could have left it up to someone else, but ultimately, it’s our own fault to for not making sure it was done.

But in the end, when it’s all said and done, what has happened? Has that person sat in misery too long? Have they felt rejected, unloved, uncared for too long? You never know…

What I find kind of sad, is I feel like my school and my MMA coach care about me more than my own church… Why? Because, they are more willing to reach out and offer help to me. When I was sick for 2 months did my church call to make sure I was ok? No… My MMA coach did though… My classmates where making me teas, and carrying my stuff for me, and loving on me, despite my being sick…

Ok, so I didn’t really mean for my gears to shift there… But it’s kind of where all this started… For me at least… Really though, it does go for families too. Families are so broken these days, if we could regain some of that ability and learn to work as a proper unit we’d be doing so much better.

Friendships… Same thing, to have a solid friendship, both people have to check in. Both people are responsible for holding up the friendship. If only one person is responsible for trying to maintain the relationship, it gets frustrating for that person. Because inevitably they begin to question what is wrong with them and why their “friend” won’t hold up their end of the friendship. Unless they go the other way and just decide it’s not worth their time anymore.

So, I probably should be done now, because when it comes to dysfunctional communication/team work/relationships, I could go on forever…

So with that I will close.

God Bless,

Jessica