A pleasant day, contrary to forecasts.
I find myself wandering a cemetery in Dunkirk, Ohio --this
graveyard terminus of a tiny parade wherein my eldest son,
a 4-H'er, is marching with his dog.
My two-year-old boy is beside me. He wants poppa to lift him up
onto the monuments to play, is frustrated by my hesitation.
No anxiety in him about desecration, about disrespecting the dead.
In this he is as unselfconscious as George W. Bush placing a wreath.
This my forty-fifth Memorial Day. Impossible heap. My last grandparent
died just a few weeks ago. Fine summer days -- how many remain to me?
We drift past a weathered old stone on the periphery of the yard.
Slight shock of recognition. "Valentine Amspaugh," a Civil War vet,
his final resting place. A tiny flag flutters over the stone, a last
pathetic gasp of gratitude.
How many dead today in Iraq, I wonder?
And my sons -- will their names appear on some future casualty list?
Here comes the band.
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