Memorial Day is tomorrow. In many ways this subtle holiday is a day of thanks, thanks to all the soldiers that fought and died in wars representing this once great nation. In a way, that can seem sad.
But to heck with sad. We've no time for sad. This is America and we got stuff to do.
I never lost a friend or family member in any war and many of my friends and family members have fought in many wars. Going back to World War II and through Korea and Vietnam and then up and into this crazy middle eastern mess we got going on now, at least one and typically more than one of my relatives participated. They weren't happy about it, I imagine, but they were happy to come home alive and restart their lives like one would reclaim a stolen car after years without it. They found their lives, jacked them up, gutted them, got them started and then worked on polishing them up.
But some weren't so lucky.
"Bullets don't kill DeGraafs," I once told my sister after CNN was nice enough to report that my brother's unit in Afghanistan had taken fire. "Bacon does. I'd be more worried about his diet."
"Thanks Nate," she said. "You always know how to make this family sound strong."
But my family's never had to endure the real test of strength: the loss of a young relative.
We have always made it home, we have always survived and yet we've never faced that ultimate and ridiculous challenge: losing a loved one in their prime.
Tomorrow, all across this land, families will be barbecuing and drinking and some of them will also be remembering a fallen son or daughter. The eyes of wives and mothers and sisters will mist and yield tears, memories will flow into the cerebral souls of fathers and brothers and husbands who will turn on the ballgame and do their best to let their loved ones know that they are strong. That's life… well, with death anyway.
As my boy Six always said about deceased friends, "Ain't no use in rolling dead people around your head. They ain't gonna show no how."
True enough but nevertheless, tomorrow I lift a beer to the sky and I say a small prayer. It consists of one little word.
"Thanks."