Remember

Just a weekly conversation with out-of-state son. He asked me about a restaurant we went to in his earlier life and I never made the connection. In our brains are up front happenings and down in a back corner are those moments to be remembered: be mindful of again. So on Monday I thought of the collection of Smiths gathering at Live Oak Ranch and saddling horses for rides out to see Longhorns and cutting early peaches for cobbler. Not any pedestrian action on Swift Blvd. yet the air had that enticing smell of someone barbecuing out of sight. Flags on polls in front yards fluttered in the slight breeze and snapases caught a thought buried in the back reaches of my brain’s convoluted folds.

Memorial Day. A holiday at the end of school to draw the family to the ranch and so much more than that. Through various changes since the Civil War it has been a time to remember those who died in war, a giant “Thank you for your service.” My parents married when my dad came back from WWI. As a child, I bought red paper poppies to remember and raise money for the VFW. Hammond was small enough that I marched in my Girl Scout uniform along with the local National Guard led by the college band and a baton twirling drum major. The poem In Flanders Field was quoted with solemnity at the end of ceremonies before Taps was blown.

Once the memories became more expansive they became more focused. The honor is bestowed because the soldiers died. I’ve been to Arlington where graves face east to be prepared for a great gettin’ up morning. I have stood beside orderly rows of crosses at Omaha Beach for those who will never come home and each cross has a name. Men I’ve worked with and boys I’ve taught have been a part of the next generation to go to battle, even to this day. I travel hopefully for a promised ending of Isaiah 2:4 And He will judge between the nations, And will mediate for many peoples; And they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. Until then, we have to be faithful to remember.

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. Deuteronomy 32:7