This is the third and final reflection in my Independence Day trilogy. The first looked upward to Mount Rushmore and the ideals upon which America was built. The second remembered my Grandpa Svagera, born on July 4, 1923, and the generation that defended those ideals. This final reflection looks closer to home, to the neighborhoods, parks, churches, and small towns where I believe the American spirit is still quietly alive.
Two Americas
I have long believed that there are two Americas.
There is the America we argue about, and then there is the America we quietly live in every day.
The first fills our television screens, the second fills our hearts.
As this Fourth of July weekend comes to a close, I find myself thinking less about monuments and politics and more about neighborhoods, church bells, city parks, Little League baseball fields, and the ordinary people who quietly make this country worth loving.
That is the America I hope we never lose.
It is the America that first captivated me as a child during our family’s trip to Mount Rushmore, a memory I shared in my reflection, Mount Rushmore: The Faces That Still Call Us Higher. Standing beneath those granite presidents, I saw the grandeur of America’s ideals. Looking back now, I realize those ideals were never meant to remain carved in stone. They were meant to be lived in ordinary communities.
Grandpa Knew This America
Yesterday I reflected on what would have been my Grandpa Svagera’s 103rd birthday in Born into the Promise: A July 4th Reflection.
Grandpa was born on July 4, 1923, into a family that believed deeply in America.
His father, my great-grandfather Jan Svagera, had crossed an ocean in search of freedom after leaving Moravia. During the First World War he joined the Czechoslovak Legion in France, helping secure the independence of the land of his birth before returning to the United States, because he believed in the promise of his adopted homeland. I have written extensively about that remarkable journey in my reflections on the Czechoslovak Legion.
Grandpa would later serve aboard the USS California during World War II, helping defend the very country his father had chosen.
Yet when the war ended, he did not return seeking fame.
He returned to ordinary life.
He married.
Raised children.
Worked hard.
Went to church.
Loved his family.
Mowed the lawn.
Visited neighbors.
Built a home.
In other words, he helped build America.
Because nations are not ultimately built in capitol buildings.
They are built around kitchen tables.
Coming Home After COVID
Years later, after surviving COVID, I found myself wondering whether there was still a place for me in that America.
The ventilator was behind me.
The coma was behind me.
Months of rehabilitation were behind me.
But the future remained uncertain.
My body was weak.
Employment seemed almost impossible.
Like many survivors of catastrophic illness, I questioned not only what I could do, but whether I still belonged anywhere at all.
Then something happened that I will never forget.
My former supervisor from the City of Papillion Parks Department reached out to me.
His message was wonderfully simple.
“Come back home.”
Not merely, “Come back to work.”
Come back home.
At first I thought he was offering me a job.
Looking back, I realize he was offering me something much greater.
He was reminding me that I still belonged.
“There’ll Always Be a Place for You”
After prolonged illness, you begin to wonder if your usefulness has expired.
Whether people now see only your limitations and even whether life has quietly moved on without you.
Then someone extends grace instead of suspicion.
Someone remembers you before your suffering and quietly says, in one way or another:
“There’ll always be a place for you.”
Those words restored something inside me long before my body had fully recovered.
You Find Out Who Your Friends Are
Kenny Chesney sings in You Find Out Who Your Friends Are that hardship reveals who truly stands beside you.
He is right.
Suffering has a way of stripping life down to what matters.
The people who remain are rarely the loudest.
They are the faithful ones.
The ones who quietly show up, the ones who remember your name long after others have forgotten it.
During my own recovery, a journey I describe more fully in Back at Grandma’s Table, I discovered that healing often arrives through ordinary acts of kindness.
Sometimes grace comes in the form of a phone call.
Down Home
There is another song that has stayed with me through the years.
Alabama’s Down Home.
Every time I hear it, I think less about geography and more about belonging.
I think about communities where people know your name before they know your résumé.
Where your character matters more than your accomplishments.
Where children still spend summer afternoons chasing each other through a well-kept city park.
Places where a Dairy Queen isn’t just a place to buy ice cream, it is where little league teams celebrate victories, grandparents treat grandchildren, teenagers gather after football games, and families linger together on warm July evenings.
That, to me, is America.
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
The older I become, the less impressed I am by glamour.
The places that matter most are the places that remember you.
Communities that welcome you back, neighbors who notice when you’re gone.
The friends who never stopped praying.
Those are treasures beyond measure.
Parks, Dairy Queen, and Patriotism
Returning to the Parks Department changed the way I viewed my work.
To some, maintaining parks may seem ordinary, to me it has become an act of stewardship.
Every baseball field prepared, Christmas light hung, and freshly mowed park, these are quiet acts of patriotism.
Because parks are where children learn to ride bicycles.
Where parents push swings, grandparents tell stories, and families gather on Independence Day.
Sometimes loving your country looks less like waving a flag and more like making sure the place beneath that flag is beautiful for the next family who visits.
Why Small Towns Matter
People often ask what America means to me.
My answer grows simpler every year.
America is not merely a government or an economy, America is a way of life.
It is communities where children are known.
Where people still stop to help a stranger and ordinary people quietly do extraordinary things.
That America is not perfect.
It never has been.
My great-grandfather knew that.
My grandfather knew that.
Yet they believed it was worth sacrificing for.
So do I.
The America I Hope We Never Lose
As this Independence Day trilogy comes to an end, I find myself praying that we never lose this America.
The America where children still chase fireflies after fireworks.
Where families gather around picnic tables in parks that remain green.
Places where neighbors become friends and churches continue pointing weary souls toward Christ.
Where ordinary people quietly build extraordinary communities.
This is the America Jan Svagera crossed an ocean to find.
The America my Grandpa defended during World War II, and the America that welcomed me home after COVID, when I wondered whether I still had anything left to give.
It is not a perfect America.
But it is a beautiful one.
And it is the America I hope we never lose.
Continue the Journey
If you enjoyed this reflection, I invite you to read the other two reflections in this Independence Day trilogy:
Recommended External Resources
- National Park Service – Mount Rushmore: https://www.nps.gov/moru/
- Library of Congress Veterans History Project: https://www.loc.gov/vets/
- City of Papillion Parks & Recreation: https://www.papillion.org/163/Parks-Recreation/
- National Recreation and Park Association: https://www.nrpa.org/
- Luke 15 (The Prodigal Son): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15&version=RSVCE
