Memorial Memories

I'm interrupting my cat commentary to give you a Memorial Day memory.  It just seemed appropriate.

Memorial Day is a very important day for my family.  I have many, many memories surrounding Memorial Day.  It's a day that we gather flowers and go to the many surrounding cemeteries to remember our deceased family members.  (It wasn't until much, much later in my life that I realized that Memorial Day was meant to honor veterans.  I thought it was for all deceased people.  So I was wrong.  But I still love the tradition of remembering my non-veteran family members as well.)  It's a day to go from cemetery to cemetery and visit with all of the other family members that have also gathered there.  My mom told me today that my Grandma Hall used to go to the Milo cemetery in the morning and stay there all day to visit with all of the family that would come.

But this isn't a post for Memorial Day memories in general.  It's about one in particular.  I'll probably write about others later in passing.  (Like the time that Brett came cemetery-hopping with us while he was dating Jalin.  And then she broke up with him (or almost did anyway) soon thereafter.  Don't worry, it's a happy ending.  They're married now.)

One day, when I was little, maybe about 8ish? we were at the Milo cemetery.  And my mom was being utterly boring and just talking to people.  People I didn't even know.  About things I didn't care about.  Luckily for me, there were other kids there playing.  I didn't know these kids, and I'm typically not a very outgoing person, so I'm not sure how I ended up playing with them, but I did.  I specifically remember this one spinning gate that Mom tells me has been there since before she can remember.  We were standing on the gate while someone else would spin it.  It was kind of like a merry-go-round.  Except it was a gate.  In a cemetery.  Pretty sure they don't allow merry-go-rounds in cemeteries.

I also remember the dad of one of the girls giving us all gum.  I accepted it happily and eventually made my way back to my mom who asked me where I got the gum.  So I told her.

"Wait.  Are you telling me that you took candy from a stranger?"

I was stunned.  I just stared at her.  Holy cow!  I did just take candy from a stranger!  It was a lot more innocent than I had ever imagined.  I always pictured scary candy-giving strangers to be ones that would pull over in their car on the side of the road and shadily try to entice me to take their drug-laced candy.  Not some nice fatherly figure of a girl I had been playing with.

I think that was the day that the reality of how innocent something scary could actually be.  Sure, my gum wasn't actually laced with any drugs.  And the father really was just a nice fatherly figure.  But what if it hadn't been?  I'm glad my mom took that opportunity to point out potential dangers and how they fit into real life.  It would have been easy for her to just not even notice that I was chewing gum.  Or to just shrug her shoulders when she found out where I got it.  But instead she was observant and quick to use an everyday event to teach me a life lesson.

Thanks, Mom.