The Top Shelf by Liz Flaherty

Yesterday at Kroger, I couldn't reach the top shelf. Or maybe it was the next to the top shelf. As I stretched, trying to make five-two-and-a-half into something it isn't, a voice from behind me said, "May I help you?" A young woman in the six-foot range with dark-framed glasses and a smile reached for what I needed, and I told her she made me think of my granddaughters. Like their mother, they are tall girls who get things off top shelves for others. 

This is Memorial Day weekend. It's the week of the Race. Other places call it the 500, or the Indy 500, but I will always think of it as the Race. I've never been there because I don't like racing, but I do like that it's a tradition, that people enjoy it, that it's a point of pride in a state that...well, I won't go there. Not today. Did I mention tradition? 

Our wedding anniversary, the 52nd, will be in a few days. It was a good time to get married, because we knew we'd always have a three-day weekend. 

We'll see most of our family this weekend, although at least half of the Magnificent Seven won't be around because they live Away. They are happy. That's enough for their grandparents. Right now, I'm glad the guest room is occupied as well as a blow-up mattress in the office. It's a time of celebration. 

Mostly, though, it's a time of remembrance of those who have paid the ultimate price for service to the country, so that we can have traditions and celebrations. 

It's easy, in "times like these," to forget the good parts. Although some of us don't feel about our country quite the way we used to and every day seems to bring new disappointment, those feelings don't dim the gratitude or the reverence owed to fallen veterans.

They are the ones who've always gotten things off the top shelf for all of us. 

Have a good week. Be nice to somebody. 

  Liz