I never expected to feel sorrow comparing my own country to another. But each time I return from China, I do. There, I see pride in motion — trains that whisper across the land, cities lit with care and purpose, and a people who believe in the power of tomorrow. Everything feels alive, coordinated, hopeful.
Then I come home. And I feel … exhaustion. Roads cracked like old memories, empty storefronts where dreams used to live and a weariness in people’s eyes — as if we’ve all quietly agreed that decline is inevitable. We don’t talk about building anymore. We talk about blaming.
In China, I see a society that asks, “How can we make it better?”
In America, we ask, “Who should we hate for this?”
I miss the country that once built the impossible — that looked at the moon and said, let’s go. Now we can’t even agree on keeping the government open.
It hurts to admit this, but the world has passed us in spirit. While others move forward with unity, we drown in noise and outrage.
I love this country enough to write this eulogy. America didn’t die in war or famine — it died of apathy, arrogance and forgetfulness. It died when truth became optional, when comfort replaced courage, when outrage replaced effort. The American dream was never achieved. It was abandoned.
Bill Werts Jr.
Bridgeville