{"id":4369,"date":"2016-05-09T11:27:13","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T18:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=4369"},"modified":"2016-05-06T17:23:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T00:23:48","slug":"big-birthday-memory-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/09\/big-birthday-memory-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Birthday Memory #14: Life and Death on the Coast of France"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mont<\/a>
On the approach to Mont San Michel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today \u2013 from\u00a0May 8, 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

It doesn’t look at all real – I know that. \u00a0But it is. \u00a0It’s also a place I’ve wanted to see for as long as I can remember. \u00a0And here we are. \u00a0Here we are! \u00a0The sweet, formidable beauty of this place is matched only by its astonishing history – as a monastery, a prison and a target, from ancient times to the carnage and suffering of D-Day.<\/p>\n

Mt-Saint-Michel has, for more than a thousand years, stood atop the rock upon which is was built. \u00a0Its timelessness is much of what attracts people, I suspect, along with its ice-castle beauty and the awesome commitment of its inhabitants:\u00a0\u00a0the sacrifices made by these men on the mountain top, alone, virtually silent, with nothing to do but pray and take on their assigned chores, meditate and live out their lives in as holy a way as possible<\/p>\n

\"SMEglise<\/a>
Ike sends US troops off to the D-Day invasion of Europe that helped win WWII.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearby, the small town of Saint-M\u00e8re-\u00c9lgise<\/a>\u00a0 and its museum await \u00a0the summer celebration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day <\/a>and its remarkable exercise in vision, courage and grit. \u00a0This diorama of General Eisenhower’s<\/a> last visit with the men he was sending to fight and die \u00a0is a moving one. \u00a0Anyone who has ever seen his 1968 conversation with Walter Cronkite knows how well the General understood that half of those he sent out on D-Day would never return.<\/p>\n

\"SMglise<\/a>
Resistance Armbands<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"SMeglise<\/a>
Prayers to say if death is near; provided by the military<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One group of special heroes and heroines represented \u00a0at the museum were the Resistance – women and men who parachuted behind enemy lines, worked with local opponents of the Reich to complicate their war and, at great personal risk. transmitted by hidden radios everything they learned about their German enemy.<\/p>\n

Aside from their real-life-spying, they also served in special, high-risk, low profile operations, commemorated in history, in films and in novels. \u00a0I often used the Resistance stories and the children running messages and doing other support work as a way to engage our sons in history when we traveled. \u00a0The drama and courage, and relevance, was and still is irresistible.<\/p>\n

What you see here another of the profoundly moving exhibit items at the museum. \u00a0Look carefully; it’s a page of prayers to support young soldiers dying in the field. \u00a0Breathtaking as you stand among the photos of these young men and see how wise it was to offer them this comfort, and wonder if today’s military is inclined, or allowed for that matter, to provide similar comfort.<\/p>\n

In all, the life of the monastery and loss that surrounds the beaches of Normandy really are bookends to how we live our lives. \u00a0Life and faith, war and peace, courage, sacrifice, defeat and victory. \u00a0It is the greatest gift of travel when these things present themselves and we \u00a0 remember how fragile, and how wondrous, the privilege of being alive and aware really is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today \u2013 from\u00a0May 8, 2014. It doesn’t look at all real – I know that. \u00a0But it is. \u00a0It’s also a place I’ve wanted to see for as long as I can remember. \u00a0And … Continue reading Big Birthday Memory #14: Life and Death on the Coast of France<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3799,3800,3,4,3798,3801,7,78,1],"tags":[2651,2652,2648,2649,3838,2654,3839,2621,2640,3419],"class_list":["post-4369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3799","category-3800","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-big-birthday","category-big-birthday-70-1946-2016","category-life","category-travel","category-uncategorized","tag-d-day","tag-d-day-70th-anniversary","tag-monastery","tag-monks","tag-mont-san-michel","tag-resistance","tag-saint-mere-elgise","tag-seabourn","tag-seabourn-cruise","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-18t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4369"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4394,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions\/4394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}