Today I raised my flag by the front door. It took a ladder and more gumption than I’ve needed in years past, but I did it because I’m an American. And I’m stubborn. I won’t give up on the flag, and I won’t give up on my country. My flagpole came with an eagle on top, just a little one, small enough for me to strangle with a single hand if I wanted to.

(Maybe you feel frustrated too? Aggrieved? Despondent?)

But I love my country, so last weekend we made a point to take our grandboys to see some of it, a really gorgeous part of western North Carolina where their Uncle Ben lives. Ben took us to Grandfather Mountain, home to stunning vistas and leafy trails and the s-curve Forrest Gump jogged up, plus bears and elk and real live eagles! The eagles mostly posed and strutted around. They didn’t say much, which was fine. Eagles have such weak, soft voices that movie makers tend to let hawks do their talking.

“That’s our national bird.” I told Josiah.

“Uh huh,” he said, leaning on the rail. “I think he’s on the one-dollar bill. Do you have one?”

I looked in my purse. No cash.

I was kind of glad.  Maybe it was the dreamy coolness of the morning, the beauty of the sun on the purple mountains, or the wooziness I felt looking at the mile-high swinging bridge, but I didn’t want to stand there, looking at money. I wanted to look at the rhododendron and the stray deer that wandered by. I wanted to wax poetic about how much I love our country. And I wanted the boys to know why.

Maybe I wanted the boys to feel about our country like I did when I was little.

Sure, back in 1976, I felt a little proud to stand on the stage with my fellow fifth graders and sing Fifty Nifty United States for the PTA. But what really took my breath away was to see those states for myself, on two cross-country summer trips for Daddy’s work. We parked our pop-up camper among noisy prairie dogs, in dry heat and shocking snow, in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, and the grand beauty of Yellowstone, where Daddy slept with an axe beside his cot, in case a grizzly bear confused us with a tasty midnight snack.

I wanted the boys to feel proud of this wild, beautiful place.

But I didn’t need a trip to feel proud of my country. I felt it every time my parents invited Daddy’s graduate students to our house for dinner. As an introvert kid, I’m sure I would’ve preferred a baloney sandwich in front of Gilligan’s Island, but those shared meals made themselves a little home in my heart. These young people (who seemed old to me) had left their families back in mysterious places like China, Nigeria, Israel, Egypt, and Italy just to learn from my dad and other agricultural engineering professors at NCSU. Then they’d take that knowledge home to help their country better manage their water resources and grow the food the people needed.

The United States said yes to students, and the world was better for it. I wanted the boys to feel proud of that.

One day I’ll tell them about what it was like for Todd to serve our country, back when we first got married. How the Air Force moved us to Denver for Todd’s training as an intelligence officer, then to Omaha, and finally to Washington DC. How we loved living where everything happened, where people from both sides tried to work together—at least occasionally. How Todd worked in a vault somewhere in the city, but I didn’t know where. We didn’t talk about it because he couldn’t. The military took secrecy seriously, knowing lives were at stake.

I wanted the boys to be proud of the hard, brave work of people who serve our country.

One day I’d tell them how proud I was to start work at the National Institute of Health, my first job in DC. In 1987, everyone was working their hearts out, racing to sequence the AIDS virus. Once it was sequenced, there was hope for treatment—and maybe the discovery of a cure. Unfortunately for me, the only discovery I made was that lab work made me miserable. But I switched from doing chemistry to teaching it and found happiness. I told my students about the work the NIH was doing just up the road in Bethesda, leading the world in improving public health, not just for us but for everyone.

I want the boys to be proud that our country leads the world in medical research. It saves lives and makes them better.

One day I’d tell them about the fun I had one summer in DC, leading a day camp for unhoused kids at Calvary Baptist with my friend Carol and a team of volunteers. I’d tell them how the city government worked with us, providing lunches each day, as well as a bus and a driver to take us back and forth from the shelter. This partnership seemed especially American to me, the city teaming up with volunteers to care for children in need.

I want the boys to know how powerful it can be when our government enables non-profits to do important work.

I’ve been lucky to live all over the country. When our kids were little, we lived four years in France. I loved it there. The bread! The pastries! The people! The countryside! The health care! But I missed home, too. That’s where I belonged.

I want the boys to travel the world someday, and still be in love with home.

I want them to be so in love with the USA, that they’ll want to know and understand the ugly parts. The serious ways we’ve failed to protect people. The ways we still fail. The people we’ve hurt. The people we’re hurting now.

I hope they’ll be patriots. People who love our country enough to make it better. People who’ll hold it to account.

So, back to eagles…

Ben Franklin once wrote to his daughter Sarah that he wasn’t so pleased with the choice of a bald eagle as a symbol of America. He described it as a bird who sits on a dead tree, waiting for a hard-working hawk to catch a fish and try to feed it to his young, so he can steal it away for himself. Ben suggested a better pick might be a turkey–or even a rattlesnake. I’m not crazy about rattlesnakes, but he made a good case. They’re fierce but honorable, they don’t attack unless provoked, and they don’t surrender until the fight is over. With no eyelids, they’re ever vigilant.

I still raise my flag with the eagle on top, his wings outstretched, ready to steal food (SNAP benefits?) out of the mouths of hungry babes. But as I do—and maybe you do too–let’s shake our rattles with a promise. Our eyes are watching. We will hold you to account.

We love you too much to do anything less.