canon and 21-gun salutes

it's memorial day and the flags adorn the cemeteries filled with veterans across this nation. the day is marked with 21-gun salutes and canons. there are sad, sappy commericals on tv and the smell of the grill fill the air. but what is today really all about?

when i think of the heartache of last may 2nd and the grace and pose julez presented, i can but be in awe. a moment like that is unimaginable. you get the call, you get the knock, they come, there's a lot of paperwork, pick out a casket, the body is escorted, it arrives, you have a memorial, a viewing, then the funeral, you get his dogtags, his stuff arrives a few weeks later and suddenly the world you thought you were going to live in disappears and you have to start over again. how could God do this? why would God do this? how does he pick who comes home early or never comes home?

i still try to wrap my head around it. how did God decide that day that aaron should stop and talk to those people? how did he decide that julez and her family should feel such heartache and not us? why? but as each day passes and i get another 24 hours to watch my husband breathe, play with our son, feel his gentle kiss, hear him say 'i love you,' and the million other little things that happen everyday that we so often take for grant it, i am moving on and appreciating to the fullest the fact that God has another plan for us, just as he has another plan for all those who have lost a loved one, in today's wars and those of our past that give us the freedoms we enjoy so much today.

ps, i love you and each day i am so thankful that my story includes you