Grandpa Don

What a year this has been for my family so far. I suppose we should consider ourselves very blessed that the passing of loved ones has come very few and very far between until lately. We lost my Grandpa Don earlier this month and it has been a hard time for my Step Dad and my Mom.

My Dad has spent the majority of this month in Arizona with my Grandma Shirley helping her get through the arrangements and getting Don back to Denver for his burial. He was buried at Fort Logan National Cemetery and the ceremony is something that I will never forget. This was my first Military funeral and if you have never experienced one, once you do you will not forget it.

It was very regimented and silent. The flag ceremony is interesting and again mostly silent. The gun salute, although done with fair warning is still soul shaking. It is nothing shy of appropriate for the people that earn that ceremony.

If you have not had an opportunity to visit Arlington National Cemetery and feel the energy in the thousands and thousands of acres of headstones and witness the Changing of the Guards, this will get close. Arlington will take your breath away and leave you speechless. I hate to suggest that visiting a cemetery should be at the top of anyone's list, but it is an education in itself. To see the headstones of the people that served this country in not one or two, but three and four wars is sobering to say the least.

I am looking forward to Shirley coming back to Colorado to stay. We had not seen them since right after Trevor was born and it will be nice to be able to spend more time with her once she is back.