A life well lived

I know that on Memorial Day it’s customary to focus on the men and women of our military, and to appreciate the sacrifices they’ve made for us.

There are parades, military cemeteries become seas of US flags. (And, of course, there are furniture sales and backyard cookouts.)

In the past I’ve  posted about peacekeepers in the Balkans, war films and Operation Homecoming, which I still recommend for your reading.

But a few weeks ago I came across an obit in one of the Palo Alto free newspapers, which made me think immediately of the meaning of this day.

David Keller died 1 May, aged 89. As far as I can ascertain, Keller did not serve in the armed forces, but his life was an exemplar of why we (should) take time to pay our respects to those who do.

Keller was a Holocaust survivor—the only one in his family. Born in Poland, he spent years in camps and as a slave laborer for the Nazis.

Following World War II, he and his wife (whom he met at a displaced persons camp) emigrated to the US, and he built a career in restaurants and labor unions. Following retirement, he remained active at his shul, and served meals at a local senior center. He was married for 66 years and raised three sons.

Here's the connection to Memorial Day:

I’ve visited a lot of military cemeteries in France and Belgium from the two world wars. There’s an area in Normandy with three—the American at Colleville sur Mer (above Omaha Beach), the British in Bayeux and the German at La Cambe. Walk through all these graveyards and the thing that strikes you is how young the dead were—19 to 23, maybe, most of them. German or Allied, all those men killed before they had really started out in life.

I’ve often wondered what we missed because of that—not necessarily the great advances in medicine or technological innovations that never happened because a genius took a mortar round in the bocage; but the smaller lives. The family never formed, construction projects never started, soccer teams never coached.

You know—the little pieces that form the warp and weft of society. How many colors are missing from our tapestry because these men lie in their thousands beneath the Calvados soil?

So when I read Keller’s obit it felt a bit to me like we got one back. How many colors have been added to the tapestry because these men gave the last full measure?  His long, productive and mostly (it would seem) happy life validates their sacrifice. 

A life well-lived, courtesy of those who serve.