A Memorial - and Now, It's Summer

~:~      Memorial Day - the first weekend of summer and a somber day in so many ways. I think of all those who have lost family members not only in recent times, but in times past. I have an uncle who was killed in WWII. It was just a couple of weeks after he completed basic training. He was sent over seas and was killed on his first jump as a paratrooper. That is a life that I never new. Did he resemble my mom? Did he have great artistic talent that my aunts and uncles spoke infinitely about? What would have become of him if he were allowed to grow into a mature old age. Cousins that I never had ...  conversations that never took place. Only stories remained of how my mother, in her early 20s was watching a high school basketball game when uniformed gentleman came in to speak with her. How many lives have been vanished? But the price that they paid, then - and to this very day - have allowed us to live in a place that has been filled with blessings of bountiful measure. In this lifetime, surely we will not understand. Let us never forget those who have lived and been lost. Let us never forget their faces and their families. To all of you families that are involved in the military - I send you my thanks and I send you my prayers. To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3