The Small Dog Chronicles: Epilogue

We are not ready for another dog.

We weren't ready for a dog then, actually. Lilly-bean came to us under extraordinary circumstances. A Dog of Destiny. The kind to whom you can't say no.

Almost a year later (not quite a full trip around the sun, but this time last year it was obvious that Lilly was running out of road), the small dog-shaped gap in the day is not quite as sharp-edged.

Memorial Day is about remembering and honoring fallen soldiers from both Union and Confederate sides.

I know that, but my parents suggested that we kids spend part of the weekend cleaning up graves. Pick a cemetery (there were plenty of old farm cemeteries), pick a grave that has been neglected, and neaten it up. For Memorial Day.

Maybe "suggested" is too ambivalent a verb. 

I got out of the habit when I left farming country –– though it's a virtuous and pleasant tradition to spend part of this first summer weekend cleaning gravestones and trimming overgrown grass on an antique stranger's plot. 

Still, over the course of this year's Memorial Day weekend, I'll take a moment or two to contemplate and be grateful for the service of those who have gone ahead.