Memorial Day Remembered

It's early in the morning on Memorial Day and I am realizing just how close we were to having an intimate relationship with this day. It was close enough, causing the meaning of the holiday, to not have anything to do with discount sales of mattresses or DVD's.

A few years ago, Travis was in the Sand Box for the second tour. He lost some friends there, one of them he had trained and three weeks later, while on patrol, he was killed on the same route Travis' team had done dozens of times and would have still been doing if they stayed.

Three weeks, a hundred yards, a left turn instead of a right, a flat tire, a scout plane with a bad radio, a delay because of a phone call, a thousand other flukes that caused the seemingly random selection of men and women in harms way to be chosen to give up their lives-so the rest of us could live.

Some call it luck.

This day, as it starts on many accounts, all lead back to counting it as the start of summer. It is and always has been, one of the most holy days in the American way of life. I am very happy this day is not a more intimate day at our house. But it has to be something more than the start of summer or two for one sales. What should it look like? Do we want to walk with our heads lowered and stay inside and close the curtains? I asked my son if he wanted to go to the national cemetery, maybe finding his friends grave. He didn't even hesitate-'No,' he said.

I think its not because he didn't want to feel that pain, he didn't. Don't think anyone does, but there was an idea of these men and women who loved us so much, so purely, they might not have wanted us to hurt at their departure. When you love at that level these people have done, the idea focus of their lives is not one of pain, but joy. Pain was not the end, but the eradication of it.  That was their intent. They knew something when they stepped up. They wrote a big check. We need to honor that.

So, let me propose something. Today, Memorial Day 2014, we celebrate their lives. Each one, going back to those that lost it all in the Revolutionary War to Fallujah. We celebrate their love for us. We can still have and do all we want with family, on the beach, and grilling those brats, but stop and think, just for a moment. There is a National moment set aside at 3 in the afternoon where ever we are,  just for this, to remember those people that have loved us so much they gave up their lives. Call them by name, smile at their pictures, laugh at retelling of their bad jokes. That's what they want for us, they want us to celebrate with them. They want us to love, to learn to love sacrificially like they have learned and demonstrated. That's what this day's about-love.

The sweeping power of a love so strong, the world is changed by it.

Enjoy and pass this on.

Mother

So, today is Mother's Day. The day we honor our mother. That one day a year when we get her flowers, candy, a nice card-maybe one that plays the song Wind beneath My Wings, when you open it. Yep, mothers really deserve it.

Why?

Look, we owe them, we all do. There isn't one of us here that doesn't owe their spleen to their mom. We owe them our whole lives. And we can never pay them fully back. We just can't. So, the best we can do is to admit that and start chipping away- sometimes just a day at the time, to start chipping away at that big porcelain bowl  called "We owe you this thing Mom." Starting now. Lets start with the basics this weekend, let it bleed over into the week to follow, maybe the week beyond that. See how far you can take it, you know, chipping at that bowl.

Wash and vacuum your mom's floor. I mean wash it, with hot water and soap. get down on your hands and knees and get those corners under the cabinets, where that piece of chicken fell out of the pan four months ago, and the dog never got to it to clean it up. You thought the dog did, but two days later, while you were eating your cereal, you saw it there, just under the cabinet and you reminded yourself to get it after you brushed your teeth, and never did. You forgot.

Oh, and have the attitude of cleaning that floor like your your going to eat a big rib-eye steak off of it.

Move the chairs and stuff too. It doesn't do any good to vacuum or clean the floor if there is a farm of alfa-alfa growing under the couch.  Clean the crap under it. You probably put it there when you were a teen anyway. And make sure she gets all the change you find. I mean all of it, not just the nickles and dimes. I'm talking about the quarters too.

Speaking of chipping at the porcelain bowl, scrub the bath room and toilet. Figure it this way, if you wanted to clean something that made a difference in world peace, the toilet is the greatest place to start. It's so much worse than the gas grill out back. Mom doesn't mess with the grill anyway. She doesn't care about it. Frankly, the more crap on the grill, the better that rib-eye steak will taste.

And hey, break out that rusted shut wallet and take her to a nice brunch, and dinner too, maybe a dinner later in the week. Get her some flowers. Nice flowers. Big bunch.

Now, here is where most of us stop. 

There is one secret that moms don't tell you. They are waiting, actually waiting and hoping you do one thing on your own-one thing they really want for Mother's Day-any day actually.

Your time.

Moms have the incredible ability to be pleased with just about anything you do. That hand-traced turkey you did when you were seven, she still has it. What she really wants-is you. If you're too far away, and can't make it, sit down and write her a letter, the old fashioned way-with paper and pen. Moms LOVE letters from their kids---LOVE THEM. When they pass and you go in and finally clean out that dresser of hers you remember she had since you were a kid, you will find every one of those letters, cards, dried flowers, in her underwear drawer.

Everyone of them.

Make sure she gets it. 

Happy Mother's Day mom.