When I was a young child, Memorial Day was a day we got as our last holiday before school let out. Growing older, I've learned to recognize the siginificance of the rows and rows of headstones, their link to lives lived but eventually ending while in service to a cause, to preserve that which is called freedom, but it itself isn't free.

To the kneeling soldier pictured in this post, I pray condolences and my sincere sadness for the loss of a family member, a friend, a loved one. I pray in gratitude for the service given and the life sacificed, for the fallen whose lives were the heavy price paid for the rest of us.

I pray for anyone who happens to read this post today, please take a brief moment of silence for the buried, the gone.

For the fallen.

Thank you.