i read at night when i cannot sleep. i have been doing some reading about Heaven and hell and, in due course, have gotten to Revelations. here is where the references of the dragon as symbolic of evil got to me. My Dragon is not that dragon and i wanted to write this out for my own sake, for the sake of communicating the kind of person he is.
he was born in 1952, which is the year of the Dragon on the Chinese calendar. he is half Russian, ¼ Sioux, and ¼ Inuit. his father was in the Air Force and so they lived all over the world. he is very self-confident, bordering on a little arrogant, but in a good way. the fun way. he loved my teasing him about his being so sure.
my Dragon was drafted in 1969. back then when you were drafted you had a choice of which branch you could enter. if you did not choose you went into the Army. my Dragon chose the Marine Corps because the Marines signed you up for 4 years rather than the Army’s 6 and my Dragon wanted to get back to college. he had only just completed his freshman year. his first tour in Vietnam was in 1970. it was still a bad time in that particular “conflict” and he had become part of an experimental unit. he went on two more tours in Vietnam, his second being when he earned the nickname Dragon. in the jargon of the military, it had been a “bad day” but my Dragon had stayed on his feet, fought fiercely, and gotten all four of his men back, shot up some but none of them died out there that time. there’s more to the story so accept that he earned his name. Dragon.
it was Vietnam and therefore under the influence of Oriental philosophy, mostly Chinese. the men chose that influence for my husband’s nickname; not Bible scripture, nothing Satanic was intended. his nickname comes from the Celestial Chinese Dragon, which is referred to as the mythical creature that brings prosperity, good fortune and abundance to the Chinese people.
the Chinese Dragon is benevolent and signifies greatness, goodness, and blessings. it also represents power, boldness, heroism, perseverance, nobility and divinity. it is Western Dragons that have the negative connotations. Eastern Dragons are beautiful, friendly, and wise. they are sometimes called the angels of the Orient. many Chinese cities have pagodas where people burn incense and pray to dragons with special services taking place there on the 1st and 15th of every month. the thing that made me smile when i looked all this up is that most of the Dragon shrines and altars are usually along the seashore and riverbanks because it is believed that Eastern Dragons live in water.
the Chinese Dragon is seen as the symbol of divine protection and vigilance and regarded as the Supreme Being amongst all creatures. it has the ability to live in the sea, fly up to the heavens and coil up on the land in the form of mountains. it wards off evil spirits and protects the innocent.
there was a lot more in the books i checked out of the library but i wanted to clarify who my Dragon is. in my reading of the Bible, i was getting tense when reading Revelations. that is not the reference that should be linked to my Dragon.
my Dragon is a rescuer of puppies who get caught around trees and rocks.
i simply wanted to clarify who my Dragon is for anyone who may correlate the nickname Dragon with something evil. my husband is not evil. he is the best man i will ever know. i love him so very much, more than i could ever help anyone understand or believe.
my Dragon is not perfect but he is mine. i would marry him all over again and forever link my soul with his. he is strong and right now, here in this world by myself, i really need to draw on the strength that he had. i need to hold his smile close in my mind and put the love we had in that hole where my heart used to be.
of note, when i type my thoughts out, i do type of him in the past tense, and then i proofread and stop at each verb and change them all to present tense. because i hold the belief that we do not change simply because we die. we are the same there as we are/were here.
i love my Dragon. i love him for all the goodness that he is (was) (had) inside him. i love his handsomeness on the outside. i love his intelligence that was inspiring and challenging. i love his sense of humor. i love who he is, was, and would have been as we got old and decrepit.
he promised me he would chase me down the hall to our bedroom via the help of his walker. i look at my photos of him and wish we had been given the chance. i thank God i had what i had with him. i pray about when we are reunited, womanNshadows and her Dragon ~ the good Dragon.
