Memorial Day… A time of reflection for those military members who have lost their lives during times of war. Poppies are placed on graves and given out by veterans at grocery stores to anyone who wishes one, a symbol of love and remembrance…
We watch our nation’s president lay a wreath every year at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and I love honoring our fallen this way! I miss that this year there are few if any parades with older veterans walking the streets of their communities and in downtown Washington, DC, being applauded for their service. Biker veterans did ride to our nation’s capitol and I am glad that they visited there this week with President Trump. I think our nation will come out in droves as we are allowed to host parades again!
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| Reddish-pink bougainvillea with a sky-blue Pacific Ocean in the background. |
Often I feel that our countries’ citizens have forgotten to honor our president and the leaders over our country. They are constantly bashed on most media channels. Pray for your leaders and all who are in authority. They need our prayers and honor. It is a great and terrible responsibility to head a nation and, yes, they will blunder. They are human, after all. I do think we should show respect for the president, no matter if we like his or her politics.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Hebrews 13:17, Berean Study Bible
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| Red poppies and red roses… |
We are celebrating Memorial Day over in the Mt. Rushmore area this weekend. Even with the pandemic still going on in small pockets here and there, we shouldn’t be afraid to live life…
I learned this long ago, on this very date, the day my first fiancé died when two farm workers turned their small pickup truck into his path as he rode his bicycle down a long hill on his way to work…
Keep celebrating LIFE friends. Our service men and women died trying to protect our lives, our freedoms. Celebrate their sacrifice and honor them with living…
People will continue getting sick throughout this pandemic, but 98-99% are recovering, and I read somewhere that a virus has to affect 50% of a population in order for it to then die off. The 50% “rule” (for lack of a better word) means that the virus then will keep coming into contact with people who already have or have had the virus thereby not finding new hosts, so it dies off.
I am happy to keep honoring our military members who fell in wartime and because of acts of war or terrorism. My friend Rob, was a very important friend (and coworker) while I was dealing with the loss of my first fiancé. We took a vacation over to Hawaii in the fall meeting up with friends who were competing in the Ironman Triathlon. While we were on Oahu visiting places I had lived in and had visited as a young girl, when my father and family were stationed there, we rode our bicycles up to Punch Bowl Cemetery and found Rob’s uncle’s gravesite.
His uncle died during the bombing at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. It was an honor to be there with Rob visiting for his whole family.
*The lead photograph of my father, then a captain with the United States Air Force, was taken in 1966 while my father was home between two tours in Vietnam. We moved Concord, Mass. after he returned and then to Hawaii in 1970.
A couple of years ago I helped lay a wreath for fallen military members at the courthouse in Denton, Texas, with my friends from the IOOF Rebekahs. This is a small vacation but also a time of remembrance.
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| Cooking at our Prairie Home. |
So on this Memorial Day, Mr. Ethereal and I will celebrate watching memorial services on t.v. as we often do. We walked up last evening to two places: the second was to a fun place ~ Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, opened in 1936. It was quite a hike going up the pink sandstone steps but the 270 degree views of the city from west, north to east were beautiful! (As were the small mixed herd of dinos! 😉 )
We are also going up to see the Crazy Horse Memorial later on today and walked among Rapid City, South Dakota’s Presidents Walk last evening (the first thing we did after dinner)… Very few people are out and about, which made social distancing easy.
The Presidents Walk is a neat walking tour of bronze statues located on Downtown Rapid City’s street corners, donated by family and friends to the city. (I will do a post featuring many of these statues soon!)
Thanks for taking the time to read my post here today. If you enjoy Memorial Day posts you may enjoy these also…
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Happy Memorial Day! (2015)
Enjoy your Memorial Day, friends, and enjoy being with your family members! I am looking forward to reading your Memorial Day memories throughout this next week… 💝
Love and hugs,
Beautiful post. I'm so sorry about the loss of your fiance.
I hope your holiday was a happy one, Barb. The trouble with the one percent figure is that's just the people who die. There's another 20 percent of those who get sick whose lives will be permanently damaged by the effects of covid — heart, lung, liver and other conditions they may never have had to live with before, some requiring weeks or months of rehab. Me? No desire to go anywhere. And definitely not without a mask. I plan to get out of this one alive — at least this round.