A garden of Stones

Memorial Day 2021

On this cold and gloomy Memorial Day, I walk on hallowed ground at Golden Gate National Cemetery. I pause a moment, and wait for the sun to rise. I look around at the pity of war, evidenced in adumbrated writing upon the white headstones. In shadowy sketches is written the names of brave loved ones who died to keep America free. A sob escapes my throat as I survey the rows, and rows of tombstones. I whisper the names, too many to count, written on the headstones of those who now, in cold dark chambers dwell, and sleep the eternal sleep.

Thou absent in the flesh, alone, and lonely, yet forgotten, they are not: for in our hearts, we cradle them in loving memory, just as their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters did, as they knelt to pray for victory, in homes across the land. Homes where, in many hearts still echo tender lullabies, and faint memories of laughter. And when the time for tears came, they were left with only the memories of loved, brave ones now gone, but never forgotten. Deep in thought, my mind travels back to my own family's brave one. Just turned 19years-old Uncle Santos Cervantes, who is not here, but lies in a watery grave where the U.S.S. Liscome Bay was torpedoed off Makin Island in the Pacific Ocean, November 24, 1943. For seventy-nine years he has lain in a cold watery grave, with no stone to mark the spot. This is why, every Memorial Day, I join others, whose loved ones lie here, and we walk in this garden of stones, to whisper, “thank you.” We pray as we walk to keep alive the memory of all the brave men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice and who died to keep America free.

A Little Girl Called May

Maria Elena Barr

Once upon a time, in the small town of Elsa Texas, lived a little girl called May. Her mommy and daddy did not know how to read or write, and they were very poor. So, at six years old her mommy strapped a potato sack on May’s shoulder and together, with daddy they went to the fields to pick cotton. May had no toys, so she played with the bees, the spiders and boll weevils and all the critters that crawled on the cotton

leaves.

One morning now wearing a long cotton sack, she was bent down picking cotton when she looked up and saw a yellow bus full of kids on their way to school. She smiled at the children and they all waved and smiled back as they went by. A smile on her face May began to pick cotton again. She was happy. She now had a dream. One day she too would be on that bus. Between picking cotton, strawberries, onions, carrots and radishes May was lucky to be able to go to school only a couple of precious months a year. She loved school. She started learning, to read books that opened up a new world. Working every day, most of the year, there was little time for school. Her daddy in order to keep his children working hard, began to tell them stories. May’s favorite was the one about a mystical bird that flew to many faraway places.