I remember wanting to as young as age 10 or so. As life unfolded, I managed to NOT get there for many....many, many years. Always promising myself that the NEXT trip down to see the cousins....I SURELY would, but no. Trips to the area were always filled with all the fun cousin stuff, and when I did get through the towering pillars by the front entrance, back in 2000, we got INTO the parking lot. As we parked with a 3 month old, 17 month old, 2.5 yr old and 6 year old....someone (well, maybe everyone? It's vague now) began to unravel and the trip fell apart within seconds, and we were passing BACK through the dramatic entrance and I have joked about it ever since (and had several trips back to the area, still leaving me longing to get into (actually INTO) Arlington National Cemetery.
On Saturday, in 35'F weather, I dragged my 4 children, husband and cousin over to ANC after we did the rapidfire footpath of the monuments, snapping a few pictures along the way. It sure didn't look like April in Washington.....looked more like November. And it was windy and cold.
I did find myself horribly disappointed at myself when I began to hedge on insisting we get over there, because it was "chilly & windy". It seemed to be the height of irony that I would even allow the suggestion to enter my mind. Really?? Is it too cold to go pay respect to a virtual ocean of dead men and women who are practically ALL there in recognition and honor of their tireless spirit, selflessness, fearless devotion and passionate commitment to this nation and it's future generations? I feel equally proud of the misguided men, and children, who were drafted or signed up for the military for ALL the wrong reasons. I digress... "UUUHHHHH Pah-Leaze." That is among the most rediculous of thoughts, albiet fleeting, that I can recall having had. RE-DIC-U-LOUS, to consider not going because it was chilly. And so we drove, again, through the entrance to Arlington, the place which has captivated me for decades, and we - get this - pulled into a parking space and GOT OUT of the truck. It was a magnificent and uplifting moment, like the Red Sox winning the World Series was for some, I was actually OUT OF THE CAR at ArlingtonNational. Cool.
Now, off to tackle the sidewalk to the main grounds and information building. The wind whipped up the lot, and I felt as if it was there TO remind me that this wasn't about me having a lovely spring day for myself, but that I really needed to do this...for reasons I still don't understand at all....I just accept that it just is.
NOW.....Please remember that I have just shuttled through DC and many of it's monuments with kids who are 7,8,9 &13. (For those who have gone "sightseeing" with kids at ANY of those ages, you know that a "really enormous cemetery" isn't usually high on the list of priorities. It rides somewhere barely above getting shots and extra-credit homework, particularly after walking around the monuments for 2 *cold* hours prior.) "No, really kids, this cemetery is really famous". Oh yeah, Mom?? We're going on a field trip to a cemetery? Grrrrreat. (For the Sarcasm-challenged, read "MOM SUX")
We approach the first sign. It reads (and Chris asks the boys to read aloud):
WELCOME TO ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
OUR NATION'S MOST SACRED SHRINE
PLEASE CONDUCT YOURSELVES WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT AT ALL TIMES
PLEASE REMEMBER
THESE ARE HALLOWED GROUNDS
I'm unclear if the slight welling of tears in my eyes and onto my increasingly chilled cheeks is because I am swelled with "patriotism", and unimaginable appreciation for those who lay, dead, before me, or because I'm standing on Hallowed Grounds in the Nation's Most Sacred Shrine, or because I have decided to do this with boys who, let's be honest, have pee'd in Gatorade bottles in Grammy's back yard.....because, well, they could. What was I thinking bringing Joe, of all the children in the world....a child who has NEVER met a rock, tree, shrub, stone wall or building that he wasn't going out of his skin to CLIMB? He (like most boys) is the quintessential "up-the-slide-the-wrong-way" kids. They just have no interest in using "things" as they were intended...they are drawn "to-do-it-backwards". Like an escalator that is calling out his name, I can see Joe's eyes dart from one area to another, taking in everything he could do "backwards!".
Again, I resist the urge to turn back, due to my growing concern that I know I will throttle the ever-loving crap out of any or all of these kids if they misbehave in here. It's like screwing around during the National Anthem. But at least they KNOW that. They've been trained to be frightened - just a bit, but enough - they know better. This could potentially be the most dangerous "place" they've ever been....because, of course, this is Mom's "thing" and this will emotionally wind Me up, and then some. Seriously...I could already feel it building before we made it off the sidewalk toward the information building.
OK.....so we enter. The place is lovely with much to see, read, and learn. While I expect them to "behave", I'm not quite ready to snap anyone in two for a misstep....yet.
We get the footpath plan in place, and figure out the places that we really want to go, and how to make sure we get there. First, we head for JFK's burial place, beneath the Eternal Flame, up a long winding hill, while Joe takes each step looking more and more like he's got something "wrong" with him and at first I couldn't place it. He'd dragged the toe on his left shoe all day, and the entire sole had come free from the actual shoe.....and now he was enjoying flipping it under his foot with every step. Not really doing anything "wrong", but had fully destroyed the only sneaker(s) he had in DC, but he stopped walking like a boob after the first time I asked, which was a nice treat. I wondered if maybe being surrounded by the dead was one time he wasn't really ready to push-the-limits.
The views from inside the cemetery are as magnificent, as one would expect or could anticipate, since it's such a heavily photographed cemetery, landmark, and symbol. We climbed further up the hill in the giant shadow of the deep and dark low-lying cloud cover. There was no sun. None at all. It really was "beautiful", but in a somewhat gloomy, gray, sort of sad way. Beautiful none the less. I kind of appreciated it in an odd way. The experience touched more of the senses this way, and I was trying to absorb everything I could. Kathryn asked me, headstone by headstone if I knew this person, or that, like this was somehow a cast of characters whose names I would be able to place, even if I didn't "know" them personally. Once we explained that I would point out ALL the ones I know personally or knew the history of, the chatter slowed a bit. Kathryn remained draped on her Dear Jimmy's arm, as she has done every time we've ever had Jimmy around, and he was being the patient victim of a crush that he always is with her. It's very endearing. He HAS to get annoyed, and yet never ever (ever EVER ever) shows it.
I hadn't realized how close the death of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy was to the death of his young father. I guess that's partly due to my inability to remember it (I was born 10 years after), but I probably had "heard" it before, but I hadn't processed it as a mother, and someone closer to Jackie's age when she became First Widow of the United States of America. Patrick had survived from August 7-August 9, 1963. And there was this almost random infant, whose direct ancestry had him buried in one of the most known and recognized few feet of space in the country. 2 days old. Amazing to me. He was buried beside JFK, and another equal-in-size stone plate was on the other side of Jackie, and it simply had the word "DAUGHTER" etched into it, with the date beneath that. The political power, famous - now legendary - political dynasty had not seen fit to spare them the pain of real people....or, you might say beyond real. It is beyond me how Jackie stood there with the grace, class, and stamina with her two living children and had the entire world watch her mourn. And do it like she just knew how. It blows me away still.
Foreground, Eternal Flame, and behind it, Custis Mansion.
Directly "above" (straight uphill, see photos above) John and Jackie and thier babies sits the Custis Mansion, and a huge American Flag. I had taken several pictures of it, and was glad because for some reason they had begun taking it down, and it disappeared. I'm not sure why. It didn't seem to coincide with any of the flag-rules-of-ettiquette that I'm aware of, like, it was still hours from sunset and while cloudy, it wasn't raining or anything. It just went away.
As you turn from that beautiful but extremely understated and remarkably simple burial place, you are overlooking all of Washington, D.C. with many of the monuments in plain view, and a swooping "surface" that is engraved with several magnificent quotes. In the distance, looking out over Washington, you can't miss the National Monument in the distance...it clearly was designed to point you in exactly in that direction. It is really quite breathtaking, and for one second you nearly forget that a few feet behind you, and a few stairs, and John F Kennedy and his widow and 2 infants lay in front of the eternal flame. The Eternal Flame. It's right there. I am finally here.
The kids were great. Joe did begin to climb on one part of the wall, but it begs to be climed. It's 
design was simply TOO tempting. Anyplace else in the world, I'd have popped up on it too, and walked the length. And to be standing at the graves of infants who never got to climb, I couldn't be upset with him. I simply asked him not to, and he pleasantly obliged. I had anticipated the overwhelming sensation of enormous loss on behalf of those who had been the family members of the various branches of the nations military, but I hadn't seen the graves-of-babies angle coming. I'm such a wimp. Pic on Right: See the monument in the distance? None of these pics do it justice...I feel badly even putting them up, as they just haven't captured the "feeling". This is the wall that begged to be climbed.
We moved on, and honestly I was just captivated by the hills (which we were fairly near the top of) of MISmatched headstones. I always pictured the ones that all match, in the perfect and exact rows you always see on tv, or in pictures. Titles, names, spouses, children and parents. Some of the most dramatic stones, and many of them are absolutely brand new....and yet, many were carved 100+ years ago, but remain pristine. As we wind through the cemetery road on foot, the kids are asking reasonable and good questions, most of which I didn't have the answers to, like is there an order to this? Why are some higher on the hill? It doesn't appear that they are in a specific order...generally similar eras, which makes sense, but amid some of the headstones that were so many years old, there also appeared to be some a recent as 2000 or so. It was with great joy that I went to Arlington with Jimmy and Chris and the kids, since he'd never been either. That baffles me, since he attended elite private schools in the area, and spent his ENTIRE life, with the exception of a few years in college, in the DC/Maryland area. I'm sure there are a good many places in Boston that I've failed to go...because it's right around the corner, so I can. Anytime. I just haven't.
On the walk around the bend to the very simplest of the burial spots, the burial place of Robert Kennedy, we discussed exactly what the Tomb of the Unknown held, and what it symbolized and meant to the country, as well as the loved ones to all of the men who were never recovered, or returned.
Bobby Kennedy
Bobby Kennedy's gravesite is the simplest plot I've ever seen. Ever. It has his name and the date on a very small, flat, flush-to-the-ground piece of stone. Directly behind it, stands a knee-high cross. Plain, white, simple. So simple. One small bouquet of flowers had been placed in front of the stone. Joe stood looking at it like he was watching a movie. I couldn't tell why, but he just stayed there for a long time. As I withdrew my camera to try to capture the moment, the sun divided the clouds and a sharp shadow of the small but memorable cross began to appear on the hill. The image is great.
We moved on, walking for a long time, around the hill, and then turned and progressed downward on a winding descent, still moving through the mismatched but magnificent and elaborate markers. Soon the path brought us to the "conventional" headstones that you always see in pictures from ANC. These were all uniform, but by being so, the text format was laid out the same as well. Chris pointed out a stone that belonged to a serviceman that had participated in the Vietnam, Korea and WWII. Wow. Just stops your feet for a minute if you digest that thought. 
We proceeded to the Tomb of the Unknown, with the kids seeming ready and prepared to share the moment with me. Joe moved ahead a little, toward the group who was watching the pacing ANC Guard, and this too, is a spectacle. I'd be honored to have thought of half of these "displays of recognition". The process is so crisp, so sharp, so flawless...just as it was designed to be. We explained some of the things we understood about the proceedure, at which point Joe makes some Curious Boy comment...not intending to be insulting...about another spectator, but we shuffle him off and Tape his mouth shut. (Not really, but hell, you can't beat a kid up on Hallowed Ground, right?). I highly recommend, for those who are not familiar with the process of Guarding the Tomb to read that section in this wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_the_Unknowns
The experience was magnificent...I couldn't have loved it any more...but I WOULD like to return on a sunny, bright day with a warmer wind whispering the stories of the history of the United States, and hearing the slight sounds of voices from the past reminding us that it's OK to be alive...and not feel guilty, but it's not OK to take it for granted. I'm not sure my kids "get it" yet, but I'm not sure *I* fully do either, yet. As long as we're aspiring to be, then I can be at peace with it.
This tree was just perfect timing on our journey, since it was the only "life" in an otherwise Spring-less day.
Enjoy the pics, each are clickable to view in a better size...and take the time to do that thing you've "always wanted to do"...who knows how long we have?
