Long Weekend and Memorial Day

In the United States, Monday is a holiday - Memorial Day. Although this holiday focuses on our troops, both current and past, it is also an opportunity to honor any of our dead. It's not nearly as much fun as November's Day of the Dead, but the temperatures and weather are much kinder than those November days of raw winds. Many people gather their families together and clean and decorate the graves of their loved ones. My parents, the only graves that I would be able to do anything with, are piles of ashes in a lovely, carved granite niche in a city far away from me. Sure I could move them up here - it's a pretty easy thing to move an urn - but they never lived in my state and I don't think they would be happy here.

So I rely on others to celebrate the holiday as a Memorial day and I do think about those who have passed the Circles of the World ahead of me. But I admit that I think about many more people than just my parents. I think about my friends who are no longer with us, I think about my grandparents who died in the Holocaust, I think of people I barely knew whose writing mean so much to me. All of these things tie together as my personal Memorial day.

Also, at lest for me, one of the best things about Memorial Day is an extra day off. I actually get two days off in a row - that's quite rare. My assistant manager leaves for her vacation today so I'll have five days of work at the shop before she comes back. If Monday wasn't a holiday, it would be six working days. I won't get my Wednesday off, but I'll substitute Monday instead and it will be OK. I have stories to write, I have DVDs to watch, and I have my DH slowly starting to feel better so things are looking up. Now if the weather will just cooperate. I want my Memorial Day brats or hot dogs - LOL. I usually don't post to my blog on holidays, so I'll blog again on Tuesday.