Going into the Memorial Day weekend...

The is the first time I've had three days off straight for a long while. I originally thought I'd go home this weekend (my grandmother's 76th birthday is Wednesday), but next weekend will be better for all of us. So, how did I spend a day that was warm and glorious? Mostly asleep, save for a few hours of house cleaning. I think I'd just built up too much of a sleep debt. I figured if I went ahead and gave in to it today I'd do better in the long run. Besides, I sleep best with sunlight and a light breeze, and work best at night. My mom's always worked night shift, so maybe it's genetic. Even with the sleep, It's at least an improvement over last year. They'd tried to put me on the drug Serzone, which at its normal dose put me to sleep for all but 4 hours of the 3-day holiday. It was like waking up and losing time.

So, it's the middle of the night and I've woken up enough to feel a kind of Zen oneness with the world around me. It's been raining gently outside (after a few days to dry out from the deluge we've been getting this spring. I love the quiet of the night. It's so...enveloping. Today there's been a lot of noise with people at the pool and the parking lot, or music (mostly Balkan or Middle Eastern, which I love) playing through open windows. I love my apartment complex. It's got a great mixture of cultures and races--Asian, Eastern European, Latino, etc. Some are refugees working three jobs to try to save up for a home or to get an education. I've never understood some Americans' disdain of immigrants. We all started out that way (even the First Nations came from Asia), after all. I love living in a multiculutral, cosmopolitan environment. It makes life a lot more interesting. After all, we may have different perspectives on life, but we share a common bond of living it.

Here in the South, we take Memorial Day (or as it's called here, Decoration Day) pretty seriously. While people have cookouts, go boating, and all the other things you do during holidays, they also visit family graves, clean up and care for the lots, decorate them with flowers, etc. There are ceremonies commemorating the fallen. In Europe, Canada, and Australia, I know, most people celebrate Remembrance Day in November (we have Veterans' Day), on the anniverary of the Armistace signing for World War I. As someone who grew up on military bases, we always celebrated that day, too, although I'm not sure how much the general populace does. And of course, being Pagan and a Celt, our celebration and remembrance for the dead also falls in November. But Memorial Day dates from the years following the American Civil War, which touched most families at the time. I've done enough research on my ancestors to know that there were those who fought on both sides of that conflict. While I abhor slavery, I understand the position of states' rights. I'm not sure I could have chosen a side myself, although of course, attitudes were different then, so I'm sure I wouldn't be looking at it with a modern perspective.

Memorial Day also marks the passage into summer. It's when it's considered safe to run barefoot (I always ignored that one, much to my grandmother's dismay), wear white shoes and summer clothes. I'll wear sandals or light clothes as needed due to the weather, but I still can't imagine wearing white shoes before Memorial Day (or after Labour Day). I suppose I'm just caught up in tradition. After all, I still grouse about the whole moving the day to Monday, as far as I'm concerned the day is really the 30th and always will be (although I'll take the Monday off, too.) :)

For myself, I'm glad we've had a beautiful spring, and I hope summer will be lovely too. There is something in a post-September 11th world that is healing about seeing flowers bloom again, or fat chipmunks scamper across the lawn. The sounds of the children's voices as they splash in the pool recall that life goes on, that while the world may have changed a little, it is not defeated. Every day gives a bit of hope. I hope that those whose lives were drastically affected by the attacks that day find some comfort in these things, too. And I for one plan to light a candle for the dead of that day along with the dead we traditionally remember. Memorial Day has turned from remembering war dead to all dead, but for all that I take issue with the rhetoric of war our politicians spread so freely, those who died during that day do count as war dead, too.

While I'm eulogising, let me take a moment to remember those of my own family during this time. Here in the South, there's usually one woman of the family that cares for certain graves, etc. On my father's side, I inherited that position when my grandmother died. But I haven't been able to return to the area because I haven't had reliable transportation. So, let me take a moment to remember them here:

My grandmother, Frances Ellouise Duncan Broadbent Young Vanarsdall, of Owenton, KY (October 24, 1921-March 10, 1993). I called her Nana. She was an army nurse who served in Europe during World War II, losing a kidney when a patient kicked her. She was also one of the few sources of medical care for Owen county, riding on horseback to deliver babies, etc. She's been in my dreams a lot lately, there on the family farm. I think of her whenever my friend Brenda talks about her sheep. Nana kept the farm going even through part of the time she was fighting cancer. She raised sheep and cattle, and she thought nothing of tying a rope around her waist and climbing up the roof, even in her 70s. She was absolutely fearless, except that I think she was afraid people wouldn't love her. When I look at how much she did, and how much she was on the go, I wonder if part of it was she thought she had to do it all to keep our love. I think she's where I got that from; I did the same thing for years. I've finally come to realise that people either love you or they don't. Nothing that you do "makes" it happen, and if love comes with strings attached, then it's not really love. I'm not sure Nana ever realised that.

My great-grandparents, Joseph Warren Duncan II (July 4, 1899/1900-April 22, 1988) and Carmen Cobb Duncan (May 5, 1903-September 15, 1991). I've dreamt of them and of the farm a great deal lately. I wonder what Pa would think of the number of shootings we've had linked to the primaries in Kentucky this year (there were three more the other day). I remember him constantly on the phone politicking this time of the year. I remember how upset he was to be "putting a Republican in office"--his words, not mine--the year before he died because the Democrat hadn't fulfilled his expectations. I think he'd think they were just going about things the wrong way if they had to resort to guns. Ma was a character, too. She was an extremely independent spirit in a time when women weren't encouraged to be. I wish I'd known her better before Alzheimer's began to rob her of her life--although the feistiness always remained. They were both very independent. It wasn't until my great-granmother hit about 80 that Pa finally consented to put in indoor plumbing, because they'd always been able to do the labour needed to pump the water in or take out the slops to that point. Through my great-grandparents, I'm able to understand some of the Appalachian mindset that people think is backwards, but is really something quite different. If I were able to get up to Owenton, I'd also lay flowers at the grave of my great-uncle, Joedy. He died at 16 from a heart problem, so I never met him, but he was a late child of my great-grandparents and the only boy, and I think a little bit of them died when he did.

My grandfather, Allan Madison Broadbent, whom I never knew. He died around the time I graduated high school, but he and my father had fallen out with one another years before. Funny, I've carried on that tradition with my own father. I sometimes wonder if we had similar reasons for cutting off ties. The only picture I have of my grandfather is one with my grandmother, where they're both in their army uniforms. He served in the Pacific in World War II, although I don't know any of the details.

On my mother's side, my grandfather, Edgar George Craig (September 25, 1923-January 27, 2000), Danville, KY, the gentlest man I've ever known and the person who was more a father for me than my own. He was a Marine during World War II, and fought at Iwo Jima. He used to tell me about trying to get the tanks through the volcanic sand, and it's because of him that I know the famous picture of the flag being raised is actually the second raising (they hadn't had a chance to photograph, the first, so they did it again). I miss him terribly. When he died his only request was that they play "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes. The funeral home substituted some sort of clavicord or bells. My mom and I were both upset. Bells are not appropriate for a good Scot. :) If I can get to his grave next weekend I have a recording to play of proper bagpipes. I've thought of trying to look up a bagpipe player I used to know, but I have no idea if she's still in the area. In my dreams of home, Pa Craig is still there with such vitality that when I wake up it's like mourning all over again to realise he's gone. Or at least, gone from life. I guess as long as he's in my dreams, he's still with me. But I am glad he's no long suffering--in the last years he'd been tied to oxygen and unable to go outside or work in the garden. Every time I plant something new, I think of the legacy he gave my mother and me in our love for gardening.

Well, those are my memorials. I'll light a candle for them on the 30th, but it seemed fitting to remember them in this diary, too. Here's to a safe and happy holiday.