Remembrance....

The ads have flooded the mailbox, sales await eager shoppers, barbecue grills are loaded and ready to go, food is purchased, potato salad is made, and people are swarming the lakes and byways of the country, ready to celebrate another federal holiday.  Although Franklin Roosevelt declared we would never forget the Day of Infamy, in fact, in just a generation or two, we have almost completely forgotten what it meant to lose young men and women by the thousands over a nightmare vision of how the world should be.

Far from the focus on those who left and returned only to be buried in their hometown cemeteries, or harsher yet, never returned at all, we have sanitized and white washed and almost completely forgotten what Memorial Day really means to those who have fought for our right to eat burgers and brats in a swimsuit by the lake with the beer flowing and tears no where in sight.  And more importantly, who upheld the values enumerated in the Constitution - life, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to gather and protest and vote - all the rights conferred upon us simply by being American citizens.

Faithful....

Faithful is big word.  It is defined by Merriam Webster as:

"Steadfast in affection or allegiance, firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty, given with strong assurance and true to the facts, to a standard or to an original."

No one on earth better exemplifies this than my Aunt Marian, who passed away yesterday at the age of 95.  For every single one of her many long years, she was faithful to God, to her family, and to herself.  What an immense legacy she has left to those of us who mourn today.  It is difficult to even find words for all she has accomplished in her quiet life.

Joy in the morning....

Anyone who knows me, at all, knows how passionately I love my dogs.  They are my family, a lifeline in a crazy world, and I would do anything for them.  They are both almost 14 now, so getting on in years, and have definitely aged.  Their coats are still smooth and there is still a spring in their step, but they are graying around their faces, their hearing isn't as acute, their vision is obviously fading and their muzzles are becoming grizzled.  They have health issues, but they still enjoy their lives, although it is a slower, quieter version.  Which is to say, they are much like me.

On life and death....

Sixteen years ago today, I nearly died.  Because we live in a random universe, and bodies are imperfect, and sometimes, for no reason at all, they go wrong, I ended up in a hospital fighting for my life, battling an infection that had exploded unseen until it was far too late.

The wrong side of history.... If we live that long....

This country was once a beacon of hope to the disenfranchised. It provided a safety net to displaced people around the world. It looked past the exterior and understood that people are not the sum total of their governments, and accepted those who were at risk because they didn't fit the mold of the totalitarian places from which they came.

On this day, of all days, when we are supposed to remember the losses of The Holocaust, when we are reminded of what we must never accept again, we, the United States of America, have shut our doors to the very people most at risk on this planet. It is shameful, and I feel ashamed. It is wrong. It is horrifying. It is immoral. We have given up who were trying to be for the last 250 years in order to be something so much less than we should be.

The terrorists have won. And make no mistake about it, they are celebrating this day. Because it will light the fire of extremism in places where the flames were not even flickering, and will fan the inferno further where we were already struggling for control.