Remembering

As I sit here staring at my screen so many thoughts are running through my mind. Life is a strange thing and it really doesn’t matter how well you think you have it planned out, let’s face it, those paths very rarely take you where you think you are headed.

When I was a kid, I was never going to be married and just become a businesswoman. Instead, my path led me to Israel where I would meet and marry a man born in Minnesota and have six beautiful children. My next great thought was that Israel would be our home forever. Well, tomorrow it will be 18 years since our little family moved back to the United States. I was never ever going to have anything to do with politics. Who knew that simply wanting to bake cakes would lead me to eleven years of cottage food lobbying efforts with a pitstop as treasurer for a state wide senate campaign along the way?

This weekend is memorial weekend. We remember the brave men and women who have sacrificed their lives to keep this country free. So free that many Americans are just a bunch of self-centered spoiled brats who don’t even realize what freedoms and blessings they have been granted by the blood of their fellow Americans.

I remember. I remember wondering if my dad was coming home every time he left. I remember my friend, whose daddy never did come home. Many people forget that the families of the soldiers, the ones left behind, also sacrifice so much.

In Israel, Memorial Day is a day of remembrance, a day to honor the fallen with trips to the cemetery and stories of bravery. The children learn this in school, it’s not a day off. The theaters are closed, there are no barbeques. We need more of this in America. We need to remember.

Life is a series of events that take you where you never imagined you would go. We need to remember that we have these lives to live, these crazy random paths to follow, only because someone else gave theirs.

• Posted in: Living Life