When my husband got sick, our daughter brought a small American flag and put it by his hospital bed. I thought it was strange at first, but he smiled when he saw it. He had always been that way about the flag. Not dramatic. Just respectful.
The nurses noticed it too. One of them said her father had one just like it. After that, people would ask him if he served. He did not, but his two brothers did, and he was proud of them his whole life.
Those last weeks were hard and not something I like to talk about much. But I remember him looking at that flag and saying, “We had a good run, didn’t we?” I still don’t know if he meant us, or the country, or all of it together.
I am placing this hex for him because he was a good man. Not perfect, nobody is. But he loved his family, he loved Nebraska, and he loved America right up to the end.