The Pittsburgh Press (January 4, 1944)
I DARE SAY —
Affirmation
By Florence Fisher Parry
A new dateline. A new year. A new life, different from any we have known. Not a turn of the year or the century, not any calendar thing. A new existence for us. If this were not so, then indeed what has just passed and what is being endured now is a tale told by an idiot.
Few left who do not sense this prospect. Few left whom the year just passed has not changed. Even the most modest man must acknowledge that there has been a growth in him. He has taken on stature and an inner dignity and depth. New stirrings agitate his spirit. New fervors possess his heart. He wants to deserve the world that is being so fought for; he wants to rise to the circumstance of his boy’s return.
Never on earth have we at home attained, before, such value in the eyes of our sons. They have been thinking of us as creatures deserving what they have been doing for us. If we are mothers, we have become, to them, almost holy memories. If we are wives, we have become infinitely desirable. If we are sweethearts, we have become beautiful. If we are fathers, we have become strong and noble, examples to live by when peace restores them to home.
From every fighting area word comes that all that seems to possess the hearts of our men is the longing to return home.
Be it ever so humble…
The new language
So, we have much need of improvement! We have much need of “building more stately mansions. O my soul!” It will not be enough to prepare the feast and anoint the heads of the homecoming ones. We must somehow expand to the dimensions of their dreams.
I do not know how we can do this. There will be bound to be a falling off… Me, I am frightened at the prospect; you too are frightened, are you not? How, we ask ourselves, can we appear to be the creatures they have been adorning and dignifying with their homesickness?
We will have to give up this superhuman striving, for we are but finite, and we will fail if we set for ourselves too high a goal. We must fall back upon the little human ways, the little humble possible ways. There are many of these open to us, difficult but not beyond us. It is a good time to assemble these intentions, for the New Year has descended, the very time for resolutions.
Therefore, be it resolved:
I will – if I am a father of a returning son – I will be as good a citizen as I know how to be. I will share in the preparation for a good community and a good opportunity for my son to come home to. I will do what I can for the war; but I will not neglect the small complexities of my business or profession, for upon the structure of these activities and securities the success of the peace will depend.
I will do what I can to keep well and young and able; for when he returns, he will have need of me. There has been a gap in his peacetime life which cannot be reckoned by calendars, and I must be prepared to help him bridge that gap. I must not commit one act or use the influence of any thought or opinion that could, if indulged by others too, retard victory. And I must do all possible to inform myself of the new language he will speak when he returns, so that we will not be strangers, but closer than ever.
Tact above all
I will – if I am the mother of a returning son – I will remember that he will be very changed; much of a stranger, divided from me now and evermore by differences which even love can never erase. He will be restless and let down and even disillusioned after the buildup he has given us, while he was away and homesick. I must try to be reconciled to this, and understand it and have compassion and tact to meet it.
I must not expect him to be interested in the little trifles of our existence here while he was away. I must not exact of him any recollections that do not spring spontaneously from his need to recall them. I must be self-effacing and unjealous and let him see that he is free, a man who has earned the right to walk and think alone.
I will – if I am his wife – give him abundantly of my love; pity him secretly but never let him suspect my pity; be ready to meet his moods and detachments and long silences. He will have fallen into war ways; he will have his rough moments, some of my reticences and refinements will seem to him affectations, for his life has been basically and brutally lived and he has come home forever scarred by the memory of unspeakable things.
Above all, I will not hold myself finer or more fastidious than he at any time; And I will not mind too much to find that I have lost a part of him that will never be restored to me.