Remembering Dad on Memorial Day
My dad LOVED this holiday. Not like most people where you just have friends over for a picnic and lose the meaning of why we celebrate, he’d decorate it. In fact it looked like someone puked red, white and blue all over our house. Dad was in the army during Korea and while reaching the rank of sergeant he loved being the flag carrier (I did Air Force JROTC so that is the extent of my military familiarity). This would turn into an obsession with flags. American, sports, holiday, random day, hey it’s an egg, welcome… you name it and my dad had a flag for it. This also stretched into his clothing. American flag hats, shirts and running suits.
On the morning of his funeral in 2006 my wife and I went into the garage and grabbed all of his flags (50 to be exact that stick in the ground), that he used to decorate for every holiday, and dressed the yard one last time. Granted there was a foot of snow but we got those suckers in the ground. Flags decorated the walkways and where the flower beds would be if not blanketed in the white stuff. As the procession passed the house the hearse stopped in front as a final tribute, the snow stopped, the sun was out and the wind picked up so that all were flying in unison. Pretty surreal moment but we knew that dad was proud. His coffin was embroidered with an American flag, the suit he wore was adored with his favorite American flag pin and as you can see from the image above, his stone has the American flag also. He was a proud soldier and American citizen.
On this holiday I’m keeping tradition by placing his flags outside my house. We split up the amount of flags with the family so I only have a few from that day but they will be proudly displayed in my yard. Every year I’ll tell Teaspoon about the grandfather he never meet and the legacy he left behind.
