In honor

My husband is laying with our daughter. It's almost time to tuck our eldest in to bed. Then Karl is going to drink. He's going to sit in our bedroom and drink beer and watch videos of him and a bunch of other guys drinking too much. The videos are almost a decade old. Some of them feature a guy named Jesse Williams, who was shot in the head in Iraq in 2007. I don't know if Karl will watch the ones with Jesse in them or the other ones. He was the camera man most often so he has all the VHS tapes... yet another reason we won't get rid of our VCR even though we're the only people I know who still own a VCR. We can't move the VHS tapes to DVD. We could... we certainly could, but it wouldn't be the same... Or maybe it would. I don't know. They aren't my tapes or my stories or my drunken nights with dead friends. They aren't my dead friends. I should ask Karl if he wants to put his dead friends on DVD. That's how we'll celebrate Memorial Day.

We weren't invited to any Barbeques or lakes or parties, but we wouldn't have gone anyway. We spent most of the day cleaning and hanging out. The kids spent a lot of time outside playing together. I off-handedly mentioned that a friend's aunt ruined his day by saying "Happy Memorial Day." Then Karl started thinking, whether because of my thoughtless mentioning of someone else's thoughtless comment or just because we can't actually make it all the way through Memorial Day without him thinking about it being Memorial Day. Once Karl started thinking about the meaning of Memorial Day, it became Memorial Day. We could no longer hold his dead friends at bay.

So today, I honor all the men who died keeping my husband from dying and the men who died once they came home and the men who died once he came home.

"Rice

"Martinez

"Ford, he hung himself after the first tour

"Chevy

"Williams

"Romeo, I went to basic with him

"Iaciofano

"Yauch

"O'Brien

"Those are just the ones I know personally..."

 

So, right now, today, I am honoring Rice, Martinez, Ford, Chevalier, Williams, Romeo, Iaciofano, Yauch, and O'Brien. I am sorry for the loss of them and grateful that they volunteered. I am grateful they served with Karl and I hope, in their memory, no one wishes me a "happy Memorial Day."