MEMORIAL DAY FOR THE FALLEN AND for ALL OF US

EVERY YEAR MY HUSBAND GATHERS TOGETHER ALL THE WOOD CROSSES HE HAS CUT OUT AND PAINTED OVER THE YEARS, AND HE COUNTS THEM.  EVERY YEAR MY HUSBAND, WITH TEARS OF SADNESS AND MEMORIES OF DAYS PAST GENTLY CARRIES THEM TO HIS WORK BENCH. HIS MEMORIES OF PAST WARS ARE ON HIS MIND, LIKE WHEN HE SERVED OUR COUNTRY IN THE NAVY DURING WORLD WAR TWO.  HE HAS  RESEARCHED HOW MANY MORE OF OUR COUNTRYMEN AND COUNTRYWOMEN HAVE DIED THIS PAST YEAR IN SERVICE TO HIS BELOVED COUNTRY.  Every year he adds up the difference from the deaths of the previous year and does his subtraction and addition, in order to be correct on the count of the new crosses he will make this year.  This is a very emotional time for him and for me, but I will have to admit, that he is more emotionally attached to his ongoing service to our military and their loved ones.  He faithfully goes to the lumberyard for wood, he stubbornly paints each cross, not before it has become a cross, but after the wood is cut and sanded and assembled, then he will paint the wood  crosses a fresh coat of white paint.  

He will take his treasure to his Church and there he will measure off a grid, and he doesn't fudge or get lazy about this grid.  You see, he isn't doing this in a hurry, just to get "the job" done.  He never lost a child to a war, but he lost friends to WW2, and even now he has very few of his High School friends left, or the friends he has had throughout his adult life.  He continues to see the surviving High School friends of those innocent days before the "Big One".  He has told me a couple of times, "almost all my friends are dead".  So he lays out his grid on the green grass lawn that faces a busy country road, where much developement is providing homes for young families, of whom some are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Some of those young families are fatherless now and or motherless now, because of, mainly Iraq.  His grid is coming together, line crossing line, it is ready for the ritual of hammering into the ground the precious crosses, some old, kept in a dry storage shed, protected from the weather. Some smelling of fresh paint, which will represent the freshly killed.  He goes through his ritual of placement, just so, just straight, and all the time he is thinking about the brave and patriotic who lay in a grave somewhere in our country. He wonders about the kids going off to school knowing that their daddy or mommy is in Iraq. He thinks about the kids who just talked the on the telephone or just read an email from them.  He sniffles back tears knowing some kids no longer have their daddy or mommy, because of their patriotic service to their country.  He blows his nose into his moist handkerchief, and he goes about his heart felt duty to remember these fallen warriors. His service of reminding me and you that someone died thinking they were serving an honorable cause is heavy on his heart.  His heart isn't very strong anymore, but it is strong enough to be angry about the physically wounded and those who suffer a not seen wound that lurks in the recesses of their mind.  I have tried to help him with the installation of the grid and the crosses, but this is a job that only he can do, it is his prayer, it is a sacrament.  

When the Church school kids come out to the Memorial Field, for the ceremony, they don't know who my husband is, no Jack stands quietly to the side and observes the kids as they are made aware of Memorial Day and what it means to them.  He doesn't miss a thing, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars standing at attention, with their old bugles and trumpets, he hears the taps, but only because he has his hearing aids in and turned on, he hears the kids singing our countries songs, and he notices the children who stop at a cross, or touch the cross, or touch one of the flags that Jack has placed into the ground in-front of all the crosses, that he put there, making sure that his respect was shown by how straight they stood, how each flag was unfurled casting a little shadow of comfort.  This year Jack wasn't able to take care of his prayer, his sacrament.