I’m in the Usual Undisclosed Location for a week. Time here always provides experiences that I am unlikely to have in Portland; for instance, going to church with my mom. Red, white and blue decorations, “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and a choral anthem on the theme of healing the broken land, which segued into some lines from “America the Beautiful.” I’d forgotten how much I like choral singing. But I also like the separation of church and state, so my feelings were mixed.
After church, we went to plant flowers on Dad’s grave. We drove around for some time trying to remember the grave’s exact location, and at some point it occurred to me that the person who would have known exactly where to go, with a carefully annotated map of the entire cemetery, was Dad. But eventually we spotted my aunt and uncle, and were thus able to complete our mission.
U.S. readers, do you celebrate Memorial Day? If so, how?