.

I fell asleep while the fireworks were still blasting away last night. Given how loud they were and what a great view we have from my dock, that says a lot. The display was late starting – for me – 9:45, and than endless. Jonathan and I were both impressed and fatigued. Before the spectacle started, I was worn out from a crummy previous night (Lyme) and he had had a busy day on a nearby lake with his family.

But I managed to wake up early this morning – it was much cooler than it had been. I headed to the woods to take Peaches for a walk, hoping to precede others on a summer Sunday morning. Peaches trotted ahead, then took off barking. Okay, another bear. She came back satisfied that she had shooed the mystery beast away.

Then…. I got a phone call.

It’s July 5, my father’s birthday. And reliably, every year on this day I hear from Lisa Sinnegan: her family was best friends with my family, growing up. Her father was my mother’s doctor. He was a very quiet, sweet, and wise man who regularly accompanied us on weekend afternoon horse back rides with my father. And, in football season, he would take my brother to UVA football games, which they both enjoyed even though the team rarely won. As well, my older sister and her younger sister, Kiki, were in the same class at school. Our families were so close, we celebrated every Christmas Eve together.

Just in talking briefly to Lisa today – for our annual phone call – my little lake world opened up into the much wider world that we share: her nephew, Kiki’s son is in the army.

As I spend quiet time on the lake near the beautiful mountains of NH, he is positioned as an army medic in the mountains of Kazakhstan, ready to fly in, get dropped out of a medevac plane, sometimes from 35,000 feet, to save a wounded soldier in some part of the MidEast. He speaks Arabic. He’s on the front line.

As Lisa was sharing this, I was trying to take it all in. How our lives/our families, once so close, diverge. How we both/all are “under” the same president/government and what it means for her nephew at this time in his life. How I feel just hearing about it. And how much larger it must feel to his family.

Breath taking.

I’ve never traveled to the part of the world where he’s stationed. I spent months in Yugoslavia in the early 1970’s and it was a world apart. The terrain. The food. The ways people interacted.

But Kazakhstan – and in the army? How much interaction is there? And on call to deal with medical issues!

Just the idea gives me pause. Perspective. I sense my mind doing a wide zoom out from the day by day intimate focus I have with my life here. All it’s details that matter so much to me.

And I feel?

Wow. Thankful for people that care.

People close to me, in my small world, that care.

And people out there in far away places putting their lives on the line, caring for others.

caring…