The Lump in My Throat

Stuff of Life We remember. We remember the young men who leave home and family to work and fight for peace, freedom and human rights. We remember the battle fields, grass crushed flat, caked with mud and drenched in the lives of the lost. We remember the targets of oppression: Jews, Gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, mentally disabled, writers, musicians, artists, politicians, and activists. We remember the innocents devastated by the destruction of homes and land, swept into prisons, doomed in the concentration camps, destroyed by massive bombs dropped from miles above and by one inch bullets shot from close range. We remember those who helped, who tended the homefires, who worked in the factories, who nursed the wounded, who hid the persecuted. We remember. I remember my grandfather, who this day remembers his own part in World War II. And I am thankful for his sacrifice, for his bravery, for his heroism which was a drop in a vast ocean of efforts to finally restore peace and freedom to the world in 1945. I remember the soldiers who have died in my lifetime fighting in different wars in different countries, with different weapons but for the same causes – peace, freedom, and human rights. I remember. And I am thankful.