A time of year has come again about which I have written several times before (here, here, here, here, and here). It might well be thought that, with five earlier commentaries about Memorial Day in place, I’d not have more to say about the matter, that I’d’ve exhausted myself in noting the ostensible purpose of the observance and the complicated, nuanced, fraught, and sometimes contradictory actualities of the same. And since it appears once again that a Memorial Day weekend is not seeing me uproot my family and relocate to another part of the world, that avenue of discussion would seem to be cut off, as well.

It’s true that, this time, I’m not going to wax loquacious about the ways in which the day’s observance fails to live up to its promise. I’m not going to launch into some seething semblance of a Jeremiad this time around. I’ve done both before, clearly, and it is just as clear that my doing so does no good. I don’t feel better from some kind of catharsis, and my voice is all too easily drowned out by the cacophony into which I have shouted it so many times in the past.

No, this time, I will simply make note that the day is the day that it is, and I may perhaps find some moment to silently reflect on things. Other than that, I have work to do, and I have my family to attend to, and either of those things would be enough to occupy me well. That I have both is a blessing, and I am not unmindful of it.

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