Courage to live. Memorial Day reflection.

Yellowstone 2011

 My upbringing stressed putting flowers on family graves by Memorial Day. While in college I mowed cemeteries and proudly placed the American flags on the graves of service men in time for Memorial Day weekend visitors.

I'm grateful to those who died for American's and personal freedoms. Living overseas sharpened both my perspective and gratitude of those freedoms. Many freedoms that frankly many Americans take for granted.

 I think sometimes we forget that sometimes it takes more courage to go on living than to die. [Now this applies to many who fight different wars: abuse of all types, cancer, chronic illness, poverty, disabilities, mental illness, loss of children and loved ones......]

Thank you to the families who live every day with a hole in their lives because their son or daughter never returned home to civilian life.

Thank you to the men and women battling the memories of war and abuses they saw or suffered, trying to deal with the pain enough to function in 'normal' life.

Thank you to the families who flex and bend and change to fit again with the changed person who returned from military service, a very different person who left.

Thank you to those struggling through life with physical reminders of the price of service: pain and limitations.

Thank you for the sacrificed dreams and goals that you left behind to protect freedom and allow hope to  grow in locations where hope had all but disappeared.

Thank you. I will do my best to live each day with gratitude, helping others and facing life's challenges with courage and faith.