Memorial Day Homesick Blues

It's the three day weekends that get me.

The big holidays, the Thanksgivings, Christmases, birthdays...I can handle those. Years ago Mick and I realized that because of his military career, it wouldn't do to always wish you were "home," meaning where you grew up, with extended family, for the big holidays. We wanted our kids to not be longing for something else the years that we couldn't buy 3, then 4, then 5 and now 6 plane tickets home for each big holiday, so we started our own traditions. Hoping that it would be enough to be in our, sometimes very meager, living room and around our beautiful kitchen table at the big holiday times. And it usually is. The big exception was New Year's Eve 2010 when all of my family, except for us, was gathered at my parents' home and skyped us just after midnight in Japan. That is one night that I would rather never have to remember. But normally it is fine.

Three day weekends, though, are the ones that are hard. We have never lived within driving distance of Council Bluffs (where I grew up), Omaha (where Mick went to high school) or Grand Island (where Mick grew up), so we have never, in 15 years of marriage, spent a three day weekend at "home." My Mom's potato salad, sitting on my sister's deck, gathered around my father-in-law's pool...these are things that I desperately long for on three day weekends.

There has been lots of Facebook posting about remembering the true reason for Memorial Day and I strongly believe this. It's not ALL about barbecues and picnics. Before Facebook, I would e-mail the article of The Lion of Fallujah since the Memorial Day weekend of his passing in 2007, and now I always post the article on my Facebook page. Major Douglas Zembiec, the "Lion," was a Naval Academy classmate of a friend, fellow Marine lawyer, Kyle Murray, who was our neighbor that year. Major Zembiec's death really hit home.

This year I added a new article to my Memorial Day repertoire. Tom Manion's tribute to his son, First Lieutenant Travis Manion is an important article asking the question "If I don't serve, then who will?" First Lieutenant Manion was serving under our friend, Colonel Beau Higgins, when he was killed in Iraq in 2007. Mr Manion has kept his son's memory alive through the good works of the Travis Manion Foundation.

I have long been a fan of Frank Schaeffer, author of Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the USMC and this year he published a must-read article in the New York Times about how Americans need more "skin in the game."

But the biggest burden on my Memorial Day heart is my friend Julie Breazeale, who lost her brother Staff Sergeant Jon Metzger this January. She is spending her first Memorial Day without her brother on an emotional tour in Washington DC, honoring the fallen.

Her family was told that this is the last photo that was taken of Jon.

I told Julie that I hate that this is his last photo, as in, I wish there would have been so many more, but as far as last photos go...what a legacy he left behind. The smile, the caring for the children, the sacrifice for his country...what an amazing man!

So after all of that, it's hard to complain that I miss my family, my "home" and wish I could sit on my sister's deck and eat my Mom's potato salad. But I'm human and I do miss them terribly. So if you are near family this weekend, I implore you to remember the real reason for Memorial Day, as well as eat some potato salad, or whatever is your Mom's special dish, and enjoy your extended family. If you do those things, you will honor the memory of the fallen in addition to the sacrifices of the military members and their families who are serving around the world.