As you know, yesterday was Memorial Day.

We are surrounded by so much death and dying this year that it’s easy to lump it all into one basket. There are days to thank veterans and days to remember mothers and fathers. We memorialize 9/11 and undoubtedly, when this pandemic has passed, there will be some commemorative date to remember those who died from Covid. But, this is the day we traditionally remember those veterans who died while serving their country.

This is my Uncle Sonny. He died on 5/5/55 at Landstuhl Air Base when the jet he was flying suffered mechanical difficulties. He apparently knew he was going down because he steered the crippled jet toward a newly plowed field to try and set her down. A wing clipped a tree and sent him cartwheeling into the ground. If he had ejected from the plane, the trajectory would have sent it into a crowded barracks and that is just not something he would have allowed.

I was only two years old when we lost my uncle, yet I grew up understanding the clouds in the eyes of my family. He was a precious family member to me, even though I don’t recall having met him. I have many immediate family members in my life who served their country but none gave that full measure of devotion that my Uncle Sonny did. 

Gone…but never forgotten….Lt. George Melvin Chadock.

Our weekend was a whirlwind of activity and yesterday was spent getting the pump going on the pool and starting the cleaning. We ran to town to get flowers and decorated everyone’s graves. Then we went to the farm and mowed. Well, I mowed. Mr. FixIt used a hoe and cleared the leaves out of the ditch along the driveway. When we were done, we treated ourselves to an ice cream bar that I had stashed in the freezer there. I remarked to him on the way home…we have gone from meat locker to microwave in less than a week. 

Today is mowing at the Ponderosa and physical therapy. And so it goes…round and round.

❤️

“…And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.””

Matthew 28:20 NIV