So, I had to work on the 4th. Some of you would say "That sucks! you have to work on the 4th! No fun for you!"
I have no qualms working on the forth. Our founding fathers, with the support of their wives mind you, created a free country for the future generations. Today is about our country's freedom. But what freedom means to me is well, freedom. A lack of complete control, a lack of puppeteering. And, even though it didn't happen on the same date, or year, women fought for their rights. To vote, to work, to be equals. And in the founding documents it reads "All men are created equal." That doesn't mean all males are equal it means all of mankind, humans, Homosapiens, are equal. Women couldn't work and get paid for it until someone fought for it and gained that freedom. And without our freedom as the country we are, we may not have ever been able to vote, male or female. So, if men had never been able to vote, women would never have been able to either. Without the war, we would not be the country we are.
I can't fully express exactly what I mean, the emotion I have, in words. You would have to be me to understand. It sounds snooty, but it's true. How can you know exactly the every detail of what I mean, without being me?
And I wouldn't be me without my country I have grown in, I live in, my family lives in, my family was born in. Had our ancestors not done what they did when they did it, things would be different.
I thank everyone. Our fathers, our mothers[founding mothers you don't often hear about, the wives, sisters, daughters, mothers of the fathers who gave our country it's life. The men really did give birth to our country.] I thank them. Even the enemies of our freedom, those trying to take it away. And this applies all across the globe. Without something to fight against and resist, we wouldn't be the same. Without having something to protect ourselves from we would not be a country. We wouldn't be anything.
And I thank you dear reader. Without you, where would your parent be? Your child? Your friends? Your pets even? Somehow you and I are connected by something other than these words and cyberspace. Maybe your great great ever so great grandmother was the sister to a former president. or the Presidents neighbor. Or maybe just someone's friend who decided to speak up for what they thought our country needed in order to be better. Or maybe you inspired someone when you were a small child that fell down and scraped your knee because the sidewalk was cracked, and that person thought that the city needed to repair sidewalks more often.
Our Independence day isn't about the war we won against the British. It's about the people who lived in this land wanting to be who they wanted to be, not who they were told to be. A country isn't so much the history, but the people who made the country and who continue to make the country.
So as you are watching your fireworks, lighting your firecrackers and sparklers think about what I feel about today. And consider what you feel.
Thank you.
