the torch

It is memorial day weekend.

It is difficult to comprehend the sacred sacrifce of those who, for the greater cause of freedom, have given their life and with it all things earthly.  

Difficult to comprehend because I dare not ponder long upon it and only skirt about this saintly courage.  For this alone brings tears to my eyes, a great lump to my throat and a pressing heaviness to my chest.  Greater awareness would rend my heart. 

Before I am overwhelmed, I replace this loss of love and friendship and all the wonderous sentiments of earthly life with gratitude.  It is a balm that somehow stops the terribleness and the ache.  I am filled with warm gratitude for the gift of their life for the better life of many more.  Including mine and my own. 

 

We must remember not the loss alone but fasten it securely to appreciation.  Their hollowed love we can and must then think deeply upon.  We can have reverenced joy for the life they so devinely bestowed upon us.  And we can honor them by “taking up their torch” to live our own life with such courage.

 

 

 

 

In Flanders Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.       

                 - Lt. Col. John McCrae