washwords

It’s National Police Week, which means Judiciary Square, and its Fallen Officer Memorial are glorious. I don’t have a particular connection to police officers but I do have a connection to this place and the painful beauty it reverberates in memory, in mourning but in celebration for lives lost too soon. These were the true good guys – you can see all over the faces of those they left behind, who come to remember.

Judiciary Square, this memorial in particular, are always gorgeous: the squared off green of the lush, full trees; the majestic cool of the stone lions, the waves of names that roll on and on with stories and hurts of their lives and their losses. It is a place to sit and think at lunch, to watch school field trips gather before heading to museums, to see spring blooming literally before you. And on these May days, a place to mourn and to celebrate in dignity and honor.

Source: Fallen Officers Remembered

One can’t help but be moved, walking home from work, to the throngs that literally fill the square – children, senior citizens, young widows and widowers. The bagpipes echo, bouncing off the federal buildings; the uniforms, badges, brass beaming proudly, telling passersby who they are and why they are here.

On this evening, I excuse myself for interrupting and a tall baby blue-shirted young man tells me I’m not interrupting anything yet. He enthusiastically shares some of the upcoming activities, and I offer my condolences and appreciation for what he’s doing to honor his fallen colleagues and friends. Then he adds that he and all the folks I see similar baby-blue-shirt-clad have just ridden their bikes here… from New Jersey.

I make a comment about the weather – it seems it always rains for their memorial service, I note. “Does it?” he asks with a chuckle, “Yah, I guess so, sometimes. ” I realize: he hasn’t noticed.

My dear friend “B” once told me that joy isn’t the same as happy. Real true joy is … profound. It isn’t jolly, it isn’t frivolous, it means something, something that often comes from a sad, deep, dark place. To me, beauty is like that. True real beauty aches. and Judiciary Square in May is a beautiful ache.