A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [76]
What is most striking about these funerals is how young everyone is—the surviving spouse, the boyfriend or girlfriend, the siblings, the friends and classmates. In some cases, the widow cradles an infant son or daughter the dead soldier has never held. Some who gave their lives were immigrants, which is not surprising. About 12 percent of those who serve in the U.S. military are not citizens. Yet they too enlist, serve, and sometimes die in action.
Nelson D. Rodriquez Ramirez was born in Puerto Rico; his family moved to Boston when he was eight and later settled in Revere. Nelson dropped out of high school, moved to New York when he was eighteen, and enlisted in the New York Army National Guard. In June of 2008, he was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, on a training mission in Kandahar City with the Second Squadron, 101st Cavalry, when his truck hit an improvised explosive device. Four servicemen were killed, including Ramirez. He was twenty-two.
I attended the funeral at Immaculate Conception Church in Revere, which has served its community since 1888. The church reminded me of many others I have been in—the stained-glass windows, the tower bell, the statue of the Blessed Mother. The mourners’ heartbreak was also familiar to anyone who has suffered so deep a tragedy. Ramirez’s wife was there, emptied out with grieving, holding firm to their two daughters, one of whom was not yet six months old. The flag-draped casket lay before the altar, attended by an army honor guard. Many of the mourners held American flags. Others wore T-shirts that bore a picture of Nelson in his uniform with an American flag in the background. The image was inscribed with a Spanish phrase, which translates to: “You will live forever in our hearts.”
Ramirez’s mother, Diana, approached the altar near the end of the service. “I’m going to say good-bye to my son,” she said, and spoke about “Bebo,” who loved Six Flags, the Yankees, airplanes, and his precious young daughters.
It was a moving if mostly conventional Catholic funeral mass, but the priest conducted it almost entirely in Spanish. His choice was fitting. The service was for the community, the pews filled with working-class men and women, many wearing jeans or T-shirts. Some were undocumented. Their language was Spanish—some probably spoke no English at all—but this way they could share in the sacrament. It occurred to me that there was no contradiction between their embrace of the Spanish language and their love for America.
When the priest completed the service, he sprinkled the casket with holy water, the end of the mass. Before the recessional, Diana stood and started singing “God Bless America.” Soon everyone joined in, more often than not in broken English: no music, just heavily accented words sung from the heart.
Though it was an unspeakably sad occasion, the spontaneous display of patriotism was inspiring. Undocumented in some cases, Spanish-speaking, and working class, surely the bereaved knew how many Americans viewed them—as outsiders, scapegoats, un-American. Yet they betrayed no bitterness and literally embraced the flag, and all that it represents, because they believe in it. They work the jobs that no one wants, they educate their children despite inadequate resources, and they strive for a better life for themselves and their families. Each day they live for American ideals. And on rugged terrain in dangerous, distant lands, they die for them as well.
I’ve simply seen too much goodness in this country—and have come so far in my own journey—not to believe in those ideals, and my faith in them is sometimes restored under the darkest clouds. I remember one visit to the Holland School in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Dorchester is a bit like the South Side of Chicago of my youth: handsome Victorian homes owned by professionals surrounded by double- and triple-decker flats occupied by the working poor and barely middle class. Today, Dorchester is populated mostly