Memorial Day

Memorial Day was Monday.
I did think about the veterans in my life and really all the veterans of wars.
My Dad, Rudy, and many more....
How war can leave a hollow spot, a persistent ache, a tear, and even ironically some good memories, buddies, pranks, drinking the wine that belonged to the loser of the battle.
How I never tire of hearing the war stories, feeling the battle through someone else's eyes.
We built 6- 40 foot raised beds for the potatoes and tomatoes. The callouses minor.
I cut the sod away from the bases of a few of our locust trees and fruit trees.
One tree, a tall straight locust was one I cut the barb wire off of when we first moved here.
The fence had grown into the bark.
Now, 18 years later, the scars on the trunk are gone, melted, the tree a tall beautiful tree, loaded with blooms with bees buzzing around them..
Rudy always said it was the best locust tree, a perfect tree.
I thought about him as I cleaned the grass from it's base and left the lillies and phlox I had put there.
Rudy too had a scar deep within, behind the lines of WW 2 Germany, the best days of his life and the worst,
and looking at the tree, he reminded me both of what beauty can be and that there is no place like home.