Memory (Daily Photo 8)

I think that my brother put it best when he said on FB," In the midst of thinking of those who protect us and have given so much, and those who have gone before us in our own lives....whom we miss so much."

In our family, at least in recent generations, we have not been touched by death in wartime.  My own family's generations were slightly off the timetable; my husband's father and his three brothers all headed for Europe in WWII, and they all came home.

But my brother and I, we miss our mother, and our brother, and our grandparents, and our stepmother Jewel, and now our son and nephew.

My brother did the work in getting this bench in memory of Josh placed in the cemetery in which I walk so often.  Due to various foul-ups, it took the past nine months for the task to be completed, but this last week-end the mother of one of Josh's best friends and I were able to plant some impatiens.  The bench is on a dirt path in the woods; the view through the tress is of a small lake, where mallards and wood ducks sailed by this morning.  I like to think that those few cemetery visitors who are a bit adventurous in leaving the main roads and paths will find some delight in stumbling upon this small patch of color, and that the words, "And may perpetual light shine upon him" will deflect a bit of the sadness coming from the dates indicating that a young man, a boy, really, died far too soon.