I need to remember this person on Memorial Day...

You know we are not supposed to say "happy memorial day".  This is a day to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, their lives.  It is a solemn day.  It is not just a 3 day weekend or a chance to BBQ.

Thank God not everyone has a fallen soldier in their family to remember.  I have one.  My maternal great uncle who died during his service in WWII.  I should almost have more with all of the relatives I have who were in the military.  My father and my maternal uncle were both in Vietnam.  My grandmother had 4 brothers who served during WWII.  3 of them came home with purple hearts.  My paternal grandfather served during the Korean War.  My maternal grandfather served during WWII.  But their holiday is Veteran's Day not Memorial Day.

My great uncle, Lt. Lloyd Joseph Schexnayder, he's the first one on the bottom left, was a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Forces stationed in England.  He studied navigation in Hondo, TX. before receiving his commission in June 1943.  He was reported missing in action over Germany in November 1943.  Lloyd was only 24 when he was finally reported as killed in action in 1944.

Lloyd had no wife or children.  The only family to remember him were his parents and siblings.  He now only has 2 surviving sisters.  One of his sisters, my Aunt Maggie, just turned 96 this past February.  I have tried to get her to tell me his story.  It is still a little hard for her to talk about.

My Aunt Maggie gave me this picture and a newspaper clipping about Lloyd.  She also told me about him and showed me a scrapbook with photos and clippings about him.  The saddest thing is the collection of letters that drag on for months declaring him missing in action and then finally killed in action.

I'm told that his mother, my great grandmother, never got over his death.  Lloyd died in 1944 and she died in 1950, probably a little of a broken heart.  As a child I remember going to the family tomb and seeing his name inscribed on it.  That's it, there are no remains there.  How hard it must have been to have a funeral with no body.  It also had to give my family, some strange hope, that maybe he survived.  Maybe he would just show up again some day.  That never happened.

I'm also told that in WWII every service man had a $10,000 life insurance policy.  In 1963, when Lloyd's father died, the money was just still sitting in the bank, almost 20 years later.  I guess they couldn't touch it because it felt like "blood money" to them.  Trust me they could have used the money, they were not wealthy people.

So Uncle Lloyd, I want to thank you for your ultimate sacrifice for my freedom.  I'm sure you would have loved to meet your 2 nieces, 2 nephews, 2 great nieces, 5 great nephews and now 1 great, great nephew.  I'm sure we all would have enjoyed meeting you.  I promise to share your memory with the others.

I can't wait till your great, great nephew is old enough to know your story.  I will make sure he knows all about our heroic family member, Lt. Lloyd J. Schexnayder.      

This is dedicated to the one I love...

My mom could win "Mother of the Year".  Hands down the winner could be her.  She would definitely at the very least put up some fierce competition.

I was trying to narrow down the reasons that make her an awesome mom.  I think the best one I came up with was: She knew how to be silly.  More importantly, she taught my sis and I how to be silly too.

Every Saturday morning at our house was cleaning day.  My mom wasn't using us as child labor, but as a single mother, she needed help doing certain things.  Oh and P.S., our house was only about 1,000 square feet.  My sis & I would either be assigned to do dusting or vacuuming.  My mom always did the bathroom because nobody cleans the bathroom to her standards.  We only had 1 bathroom.  It's a good thing it was only us girls.  You NEVER got privacy in the bathroom at our house.

The way my mom made the cleaning more fun and more silly was to play music.  She played records. Remember those?  Remember that you could stack like 3, 4 or 5 records so that when 1 record was done the next one dropped?  My mom would do a good mix of her records and our records.  There is probably not one Beatles song that I don't know the words .  Unless it is anything past Sgt. Pepper because my mom lost interest in them after that record.

My mom, my sis and me would sing and dance like crazy while we cleaned.  Beatles & The Beach Boys for her and the Grease soundtrack & Michael Jackson for us.  It was so silly & so fun.

Saturday nights always included baths and hair washing to keep us in theme with the day.  Then let the silly factor resume with the best night on TV.  I'm talking about The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

Thank you Aaron Spelling for such great and cheap entertainment right in our home.  I don't remember exactly when cable was available.  I also don't remember when VCR's first came out.  "Not much money, oh but honey, ain't we got fun?"  It didn't matter when cable or a VCR came out because my mom couldn't afford it anyway.

That didn't ruin our party.

My mom would always pop popcorn for us.  Do you remember popcorn before the microwave version?  I remember throwing that 1 tester kernel into the hot oil to know when it was hot enough to put the rest in.  I would be yelling to my mom that it was ready because I wasn't allowed to pour the rest in by myself.

My mom was silly but not insane.  You don't let your kid play with hot oil.

The most exciting part of the night, besides the popcorn, was staying up past our bedtime.  Fantasy Island came on at 9pm.  This is normally when I would have to go to bed.  I got to stay up "late" to watch it.  Although it usually involved some convincing on my part.

My sis is 3 years younger than me & would do the same plea as me to stay awake.  I don't think she ever made it past 9:15.  Lightweight.  My mom & I would go back & forth about the additional hour of time.

Do you remember that every once in a while Fantasy Island would be kinda of dark & creepy?  I do.  I'm a big chicken and when the subject matter would go this way she would ask if I was scared.  I would always answer no and then later on I would wind up in her bed.

You think one of us would have caught on.

She probably actually liked me coming into her bed to snuggle.

I hope she knows now that the little things really do mean a lot\, that you don't need lots of money to have fun because after all, to quote our favorite band, "all you need is love."

Make sure you tell your own mother how much you love her on Mother's Day and every day!