Memorial Day
We had a good Memorial Day. We had the TV on all day, which is not at all like us, watching the Trading Spaces Memorial Day Marathon on TLC. We love that show. I love to see the transformations of the rooms, I like the idiosyncracies of the decorators, I like the art ideas they have. I love the idea of making a lot from a little. I also have a crush on carpenter Amy Wynn Pastor. Not that kind of crush, tho she does look fetching in a tool belt. It’s kind of like an “I wouldn’t mind my daughter growing up to be like her” kind of crush. And, at its best, the show is like a slowly unfolding train wreck — when the designers get a wacky idea like putting hay on the walls and you just know the couple’s gonna hate it in the end. I try to look away but I just can’t.
As for the Memorial part of Memorial Day, not a whole lot of overt observance. My father-in-law did spend the day watching WWII documentaries and war movies. A picture of my grandfather, whom I never met, was watching over us all day. Robert Bacon, after whom I am named, died in WWII when my mom was a little girl. His death had a huge effect on my Grandmother, Margie Lauderdale, which in turn had a huge effect on my mother.
What would our family have been like if Robert Bacon and not Leo Pokorny had been my granpa? Who knows? How would it be different if Margie had stayed married to Robert and been (maybe) happier in her life? Who knows? Would my mother have been happier as a girl?
I’ve never been clued into all the details of the family soap opera — every family has one — but I can definitely say that when Robert Bacon paid the ultimate price for his country, his family and descendants paid dearly as well. How about remembering all of the mothers and daughters and families whose stories have been steered off path by the lossess of war? So, I did a bit of remembering on Memorial Day, mainly for my mother and her mother before her, wondering about an alternative story that never happened.