Gone. That’s what Memorial Day means to me.
Gone.
Some can go to graves and get something from the experience. I am not sure what, from leaving flowers and other things at the spot in the ground where the bones and decaying flesh of the loved ones reside.
It doesn’t do much for me but make me mad.
I don’t understand why. I am more than half a century old and I still don’t get it.
I can make some sense out of death from old age. It still hurts but I can sort of deal with someone gone who lived a good life and left in good time.
But someone who leaves too soon baffles me. I have lost a few in the recent past who I really think have been stolen from me.
I can’t put it any other way. Gone.
I pick up the phone to tell them something I found funny. Or to share a victory or a defeat, But the connection is…gone.
I think about family gatherings where they have always been. And I know they can never be the same. Gone.
I look at pictures of times past and I know when we take those pictures again that they will never be the same. Absent friends and relatives. Gone.
But you know what. It doesn’t make any difference. These words will float upon the ether and disappear like most things I have tried to tell to you. Some listen. Some get it. Some couldn’t care less what I have to say. My thoughts disappear like so much vapor on the airwaves.
Gone. Like my words. Gone.
I have often thought about that. I have spoken so many words over the air over the years. I picture all these words floating around in space.  Most of it so worthless it makes me ashamed. For what purpose all this drivel from my mouth to eternity?  But on this Memorial Day I will send some words out to those who I loved but who I didn’t tell it enough to in the living years.
Floyd Charles Rising, Â Margaret Sawyer Rising, Shelia Rising Renfrew, Mary Sawyer Johnson, Haven Johnson. And so many more.
Gone. Not forgotten, but gone.
I wonder if they are in a place where they can hear? Or is just wasted air and vibrations disappearing into the vacuum of the universe.
Gone.
