Memorial Day-impairment

I am Memorial Day impaired.  I don’t know what my problem is but I always have problems with Memorial Day.  It is a holiday that has become extremely important to my father as he has gotten older so it no longer means a cook-out and the beginning of summer to us—it now means finding a ceremony honoring soldiers at an area cemetery.  Every year we try a different one and I always manage to get something wrong—the year we went to the wrong part of the cemetery and missed it, the year I thought we were seated at Memorial Day ceremony only to find ourselves sitting through mass.  Every year, there’s something.  This year we were going to try a ‘new’ one and headed over with two vehicles to pick up my parents because between wheelchairs and chairs for them to sit in it is too much for one lone minivan….  Ernie and the boys stopped for gas and managed to take an hour, I got to my parents and found my mother not well, so she wasn’t going.  I waited and waited and the guys finally showed up but we were definitely running late.  Now my father moves rather slowly so there I am bellowing from the back seat of the minivan (which makes me totally claustrophobic) COME ON DAD–WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE.  He calmly is taking swipes at dandelions with his cane. argh.  So off we race across town….only to be stopped by a mile long freight train.  GRRRR.  Ernie whipped the van around and we raced off to a road that goes over the railroad but let’s just say we were a tad late.  Once there I tried to make the adrenalin stop rushing.  People spoke, laid wreaths in front of the flag, a group of women sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic acapella….and my Dad stood with his hand over his heart as he faced the flag.

Happy Memorial Day.