Veterans Day 2015

Jim and I have an annual date to attend the Lexington Town Veterans Day celebration. Since 1995, when R’el joined the Lexington High School band, we have attended regularly and now, with our children long-since graduated, we continue to take the morning off to watch the parade and attend the program.

      November 11, 2015 was rainy and windy. The parade was cancelled and the program was held at Cary Hall in Lexington Center. The high school band sat on the stage, and the William Diamond Junior Fife and Drum Corps, of which Sam and Annie were founding members (Sam on the drum, Annie on fife), marched in while playing a jaunty Colonial tune. While the high school band played a medley of the Armed Forces hymns, the vets from each branch stood as their respective hymns were played; I cried. David was honorably discharged from the Army in June, but wasn’t there to stand at attention for the Caissons rolling.

      In the afternoon we visited David’s grave. The monument company had told me the grave marker was carved and would be delivered Tuesday; the week before I had seen the neat rectangular hole for the marker. It was now a tiny bit eroded, with a few dead leaves at the bottom, but still empty.

      Then we drove up to Wells, Maine, for the wake of the father of one of Jim’s clients. After speaking with Brad and his family, we sat quietly near the body and spoke to each other of funerals: Jim’s Dad’s, each of my parents’, David’s. It’s still a tender subject, that there was no wake for David. I’m proud of him for donating his body to UMass Medical School, and pleased that useful research was moved forward by his donation. And part of me is pleased that there was no embalming, no make-up. But it bothers me, for some reason, not to know what David looked like when he was placed in the coffin. In fact, I tend to picture him curled up in a ball. That’s not how I last saw him; he was lying on his back, his beautiful long arms at his sides, at rest in his hospital bed in our dining room.


      The day after Veterans Day I returned to David’s cemetery. The grave marker was in place and I was relieved to see his name spelled correctly and the dates accurate. “Set in stone”.