A Peaceful Memorial Day & A Robin in the Rafters

Today we're remembering the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for our country, and hoping that our current leaders will do everything in their power to keep our soldiers safe from future harm.

This statue, one of our more patriotic-looking family heirlooms, is actually a miniature copy of a giant bronze policeman statue that resided at the Police Camp near Saugerties, where my grandfather would take my grandmother, my mom, and my 3 aunts in the summers before I was born, before he bought the land that we have now.

His statue once had an eagle with outstretched wings atop the flag, but the eagle didn't survive the move when we cleared out our old double-wide. My aunt refurbished the statue and replaced the eagle with a robin, a bird which reminds us of Grandpa DJ and which I've come to think of as my grandfather's spirit animal in the many years since he passed away.

This year, as soon as we put a new deck on our double-wide, a family of robins built a nest in the rafters. There's bird shit everywhere, and I think DJ would've knocked that nest out with the end of a broomstick the moment he saw it.

We let the robins stay.