Because I Listened to Taps

I was going to google a poem and post it because poetry isn't my thing and prose is just another bunch of meaningless words when it comes to something as painfully real as the soldiers who have fought and lived or fought and died for my country. I was sure that I had heard at least three good poems that meant something when I heard them read on Memorial Days past, but I couldn't remember one speech. Even President Obama's speech this morning, in which he asked for all of us as a nation to take a moment at 3 o'clock to remember, even his speech is hazy in my mind.

Regular words, I thought, cannot describe the number of men I'll never meet and don't already know who didn't come home to their families. We make all the fallen heroes in their own right, though we never knew them. They're human heroes doing something I could never imagine doing. It's not like I have a best friend who's been deployed overseas. It's not like I've been to a funeral where Taps has been played over someone I knew well. I have no excuse to want to cry over this holiday and no excuse to be slightly angered when I see how little this means to so many people. We have men and women serving in danger right now, yet everyone's so excited about their three day weekend. I think the weather here has it right. It's been on the edge of rain all day and though the sun breaks through every once in a while, it remembers and mourns.
No, I know every life was a life well spent. I know that there is much to be glad about. But for this one day, I want to look at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and cry. For death, for life, for war, for peace, I want to cry because for once I want to share in the pain of people who have given so much for me and never asked for anything back. I want to cry.