The sun is shining.
It’s a bright Sunday morning with a few fluffy clouds.
This is a great time to be alive.
In the next two hours, we’ll go to church, and then there will be the annual Memorial Day (one day early) tour of cemeteries visiting our lost loved ones.
It is a tradition we treasure more each time as we reminisce the important contributions each made to society in their own particular way.
Visits to the “grave yard,” as was the description used by Dad, Grandma and still by others, is not a just a once-a-year occurrence on Decoration Day (as they referred to it) anymore.
Now on holidays and birthdays of our lost ones, and often just when we’re driving by, we’ll stop.
There is an indescribable warm feeling from taking time to reread each tombstone for the hundredth time and remember.
We recall how each impacted us and how we wish we could talk to them once more. At a couple, we are even sadder, as we think about what we should have done for them when they were alive.
Each stop is accompanied by prayer to express thankfulness for them and anticipation of acquaintance again in the great beyond.
The statement of our cowboy hero, an Army colonel, when we were pallbearers one time comes to mind: “We’ll all end up in the same place, regardless whether preachers, millionaires, thieves or murderers.”
He meant buried in the ground, “dust to dust,” but there is much more for believers in the hereafter.
The first two e-mails we received today stressed the importance of Memorial Day to remember our loved ones, and especially those who gave their lives for our freedom.
We weren’t in the military, but our admiration and appreciation have always been the greatest for every one who has served on every level.
The newspaper each year prints a list of those who died for our country in wars since the beginning of the past century.
While reading those names, we always get a lump in our throat. They will never see the sun again. We are truly thankful for what they did so we can.
Reminds us of John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
+++ALLELUIA+++
V–22–5-29-11