During the Wall of Remembrance portion of Grief Dialogues: Memorial Day, something cracked open when I stepped onto the dimly lit stage. Another world slipped into the space of Ensemble Studio Theater/LA—the same space where I have stood, walked, and talked so many times before. But this time was different. This time, I felt the past tumbling toward me and the present rumbling away. It was me—inside the ribbons.
Ribbons of gold, red, white, black, yellow, blue, and purple hung from the lighting grid to the floor. Each a symbol, gently swaying as the audience members began to honor the Veterans who have died on the battlefield and because of the effects of war. Each name holding a memory. Each ribbon holding the memories.
Memory is powerful. It holds strength when honored—and especially, when contained within story.
I believe we can heal—truly, hopefully, deeply—within community. We begin the important, necessary, and often challenging work alone. This process moves us toward wholeness. But within community, when we open, when we invite our vulnerability whether we intend to or not, we discover something else.
When I first stepped onto the stage to write the names of my family and friends who served on white index cards, and to clip on the ribbons, tears began to fall. This surprised me. Where are these tears coming from? Where is this deep emotion welling forth coming from? I wondered. Answers didn’t appear, but more tears and deeper feelings poured forth.
I wrote the names of my father, my uncle, my brother-in-law’s father and my friends:
Grant Robert Squire
Uncle Frankie
Clifford Fluck
Lester Probst
Bud Sobin
When I wrote my father’s name, the tears came—watering the earth with a daughter’s love. I felt like a child again. I pointed to his name, written with a black marker on a blank white index card:
Grant Robert Squire.
I wept and stumbled, plodding across the stage, searching for a ribbon to clip on the name so they would be honored and remembered. As I clipped the names, something cracked opened and I stepped into the realm of the ribbons. I walked to the ribbons on stage left and clipped my father’s name to a ribbon. I don’t remember which color of ribbon—I only remember that I was inside the ribbons now. I stumbled more and a Marine who was sitting nearby stood up and held me. “I got you,” she said. I felt her hand on my arm, steadying me. She was supporting me when I needed to be supported. I pointed to my father’s name. “I haven’t mourned him,” I whispered to the Marine. She understood. She understood in the silence, in the cascade of satin ribbons falling from the ceiling, swaying gently as we honored the card clipped on it.
It might sound strange to say I was inside the ribbons—but I was. Something sacred opened on that stage, in that sacred space where we honored the fallen. This was another realm—full of the power of story, memory, love, and honor—for those who have come and gone. And all the while, the Marine stood by me as I walked through this sacred space, understanding and witnessing.
I was born and raised in the military. I have worked with Veterans and their families since 2010. The work is the most meaningful of my life, and it is also the most challenging. I have heard a lot of stories and have emotionally supported many. The stories matter. They must be told. We must listen. I know this, but the weight—it builds. It can become too heavy.
A couple of days before Grief Dialogues: Memorial Day, I asked my husband, “Who supports those who support?” The question lingered in the silence.
And I realized how much I’ve carried—for years. Not only for the veterans and families I’ve worked with since 2010, but for my father. My mother.
The morning after Grief Dialogues: Memorial Day, I walked my dog Gordon and realized—the community witnessed and supported me when I clipped the names onto the ribbons. The Marine supported me in a way that I have never been supported before.
Weaving through the space of a small black box theater in Atwater Village.
Something cracked open.
Back, back—perhaps to the beginning.
To all the names on those index cards.
To the names remembered but not written.
Honoring the ancestral bonds of humanity.
And I was inside the realm of ribbons, memory, story.
Held by the firm and gentle touch of a Marine.
Held by a group of people who will no longer call themselves strangers.
