Tradition, Honor and Remembrance

Yesterday Mr. Sunday the kids and I made our yearly pilgrimage an hour and a half away to my parents’ home town for the Memorial Day parade.

(That is not us or our kids.)

My mom went there when my grandparents adopted her at 12.

Memorial Day is a loaded Holliday.

My grandparents’ daughter, my aunt drowned in a swimming hole on Memorial Day weekend.

They adopted my mother and her sister soon after.

I remember sitting in my mother’s parent’s yard and watching my father’s father march in the parade with the other WWII vets.

There aren’t many left now.

I started taking my daughter down to watch the parade the year before my grandpa passed. He had moved down south many years before.

We go to catch a glimpse of small town life.

We go because it is our tradition.

We go to remember our history.

We go to honor those men and women who have sacrificed so much for their idea of the American dream.

We go so they know we care.

We go because their sacrifices are important.