{"id":98,"date":"2008-05-15T13:27:25","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T17:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washwords.wordpress.com\/?p=106"},"modified":"2008-05-15T13:27:25","modified_gmt":"2008-05-15T17:27:25","slug":"the-beautiful-ache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2008\/the-beautiful-ache\/","title":{"rendered":"The beautiful ache"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s National Police Week<\/a>, which means Judiciary Square, and its Fallen Officer Memorial are glorious. \"\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"http:\/\/fallenofficersremembered.com\/home.html\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: Fallen Officers Remembered <\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

My dear friend “B”<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766],"tags":[60,93,119,154,165,195,9,218,267,275,299,20,339,378,379,385,386,404,405,51,415,31,441,33,587,41,1247],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wash","tag-ache","tag-beauty","tag-candlelight-vigil","tag-courage","tag-dc","tag-duty","tag-fallen-officer","tag-fallen-officer-memorial","tag-good-guys","tag-grief","tag-honor","tag-judiciary-square","tag-line-of-duty","tag-mourn","tag-mourning","tag-national-law-enforcement-officers-memorial","tag-national-police-week","tag-officer","tag-officers-killed","tag-overheard","tag-pain","tag-police","tag-police-officer","tag-police-week","tag-tribute","tag-thats-how-dc-rolls","tag-friends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}