The day couldn’t have been more beautiful.  It was one of those “served up just like you like ‘em” kind of days.    The morning sunlight found its way onto my porch through the maples.  I savored a cup of coffee.  The birds sang, the leaves whispered in the trees, and my bunting rippled in the spring breeze.

Reluctantly I fetched a can of paint and a brush, and finished painting the last side of the porch railing.  I enjoy painting – it gives me thinking time – and the benefit here was a porch that looks rather nice, especially with the hanging baskets and bunting.  With that chore complete, I found my feet taking me out to the flowerbeds.  Unlike the Plant Lady, I basically have no clue what our flowers are.  My wife is the wizard of plants.  I only know what colors I like and where I like them.  But, quite often, that’s enough.  And so I weeded, planted, pruned, and rebuilt a small brick walkway in one of the garden beds.  My friend, the brick mason, told me to stick to painting.  The Dutch Irises were more encouraging as they nodded their heads in agreement over the great job they thought I did.  The outside work took most of the afternoon.  I was tired, but it was that good kind of tired.  There’s something incredibly therapeutic about getting your hands down into the dirt.  I think these days I can use a lot of that.

We invited one or two people over for a picnic in the evening.  This small gathering grew into 10 adults and several of my daughter’s friends.  It was one of those times, as my wife said, “If I had a couple of days to think about it and plan for this many I would have come apart and not done it.”  But the spur of the moment party was wonderful, all the more so because of the delightful friends who came.  Everyone brought something to eat, and I couldn’t help thinking that community is far more than a cluster of houses.  And it wasn’t all green beans and carbs!

On and off during the day I was reminded about the reason we celebrate Memorial Day.  It seems to be an oxymoron in many ways.  We honor those who have fought and died to make our nation free – and that is a time for somber reflection.  Then we picnic, go to ball games, flea markets, the beach, or whatever it is people do on holidays.  We go about the business of living as we honor those who have died.  And then I thought what better way to honor those patriots than to do exactly what we were doing – going about the business of living.  It was for that very reason they served courageously; that those who followed might enjoy living in freedom.  And I wondered that for life to be worth living, shouldn’t it be worth dying?

My friend told me how he and his son visited Normandy, France a few years ago.  In a cemetery filled with thousands of silent witnesses to courage beyond imagination, they found the grave marker of someone a family member had known and loved.  60 plus years later the emotion was just as tangible as he stood in that cemetery surrounded by the ghosts of freedom and called home to say he found their friend.  Tears welled up in his eyes, and mine, as he told me the story.  That is why we celebrate Memorial Day.

The day couldn’t have been more beautiful.