home of the free because of the brave origin

And then finally getting out, ‘of course.’Īnd then we met Ebony. I remember choking on all the words I tried to form. He told me she was a single mom of three boys and then he asked if we would build her a home. The soldier who would receive the home was a surviving widow of a fallen soldier. He said he had a recipient in mind for us but the situation was a little different. I was anxious to connect with the person we’d be building for…I wanted to meet this person, know this person and find a way to make them feel our gratitude.Ī few weeks after our emphatic yes, I was home with my girls on a Friday night, getting ready to settle into single-mom mode…when Andy Ladner from Operation Coming Home and US Veterans Corps called to run something past me. I remembered asking Jim if he thought we could ever get to build for a woman. We didn’t just say yes, we actually couldn’t say no.

And wasn’t the call enough? We realized it didn’t have to feel like the right time to know it absolutely was. And when I talked to Allison & Jim, they agreed.

It didn’t feel like the right time to add one more thing to our plates.Īnd yet, the idea wouldn’t leave my brain. And Operation Coming Home wasn’t part of that plan. We had planned our work for 2017 and we were working our plan. When we got the call asking if we’d be interested in building for Operation Coming Home we were already committed to building two Habitat Blitz Homes this year. And it’s the first home being built to honor a fallen soldier, SGT. Because this year we’re building the 16th Hero Home for Operation Coming Home. This year, I think Memorial Day is hitting all of us at Garman a little deeper. Today is a day we give thanks to those who paid the ultimate price so we can do what we do, be who we are, and live as Americans.

That doesn’t tell the stories we carry in our hearts and our minds this weekend.įortunately Facebook, Insta and the rest of the social media sphere interrupts their regularly scheduled programming of warring opinions, photo-ready food, puppies and babies to remind us about the REAL meaning of Memorial Day. People in America have spent the past 3 days doing what we do on 3-day weekends…finding a body of water, a bottle of sunscreen and soaking in the first flirty days of summer.īut that’s just the surface.

Home of the free because of the brave origin