Through the tunnel of time my thought process has changed. A lot. There are things I have learned while worming my way through that tunnel... things that have changed my perspective. I think differently than I did as a child. Heck, I don't even think the same today as I did yesterday. We learn as we go along. Every day can teach you something to grow you as a person. And if you examine yourself daily, you can learn from your own mistakes which can grow you even more!
Probably the hardest life lesson for me was the disappointment in people who blatantly, repeatedly, selfishly and coldly hurt others. The world is filled with good and evil. You will know them by their fruits (not their fake actions. just sayin' ... yes, I have become largely skeptical when it comes to people).
But I was one of the lucky ones as a child and I experienced the love of both of my parents, many siblings, and a dirt poor day to day existence as Mom and Dad worked feverishly to make ends meet and to provide for all seven of us kids. They were both hard workers and kind-hearted people. I miss them terribly!
Memorial Day, 2017 was a perfect day for me. Eckhart Cemetery is just above the house where I grew up. Memorial Day pasts haunt me (in a good way) each time I attend the services at that cemetery above our old house. I reminisce of those warm spring days of old when cars lined the road above our home and a brood of gangly kids stood outside our door watching the goings on.
Memorial Day for me then was more of a celebration of the start of summer vacation. I did not think beyond that, for my mind was that of a child.
I now look down from the cemetery's hill upon the other smaller cemetery beside our house, and I see things as they are.
Still though, when I visit the flourishing trees and green hillsides of my youth, I recollect an innocent little girl with stringy brown hair and crooked bangs, bubbling with excitement for summer's start, and I'm glad that memory is still with me.
For in that memory is an innocence. A time of trust that I will never know again.
The sixty-two year old me has obligation and duty. My skeptical self does not trust easily but the dreamer in me is not ready yet to give up on memories past.
But I know that Memorial Day is a day to remember the country's people who died while serving in the armed forces. And I am so very grateful.
God bless the USA
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| Miss you, Dad |
