One Marble, One Day

The other day I sat down with Father Joe at St. Therese, and somewhere in our conversation he reached over and set a jar of marbles on the table. He told me there were exactly 168 marbles inside — one for every hour in a week.

Then he took a single marble out and held it up. This one, he said, is the hour God asks of us. One hour out of 168 to come to Him, to worship, and to be part of something larger than our own week — our greater community. Just one.

It stuck with me. Not because the math is hard, but because Father Joe has a gift for making something simple feel weighty. One hour, set apart and treated as sacred, out of all the hours we are given. The point wasn’t the hour itself. It was recognizing that the hour is special, and giving it the place it deserves.

I have been thinking about that jar all week, because this weekend we mark Memorial Day.

There are 365 days in a year. Memorial Day is one of them — one day set aside to remember the men and women who gave their lives in service and protection of this nation. Measured against a whole year, it is not much to ask. It is not too much to spend a single day paying our respects: to lay flowers at the grave of a soldier whose name we may never know, to stand for a few quiet minutes with those who went before us.

For a lot of us, the long weekend has become the unofficial start of summer — the lakes, the pools, the barbecues. There is nothing wrong with any of that. But it is not what the day is for.

The day is for remembering.

On a personal note: I have many friends who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some came home carrying wounds that no one could see. I have watched friends — and family members of friends — struggle for years with what they brought back, and some did not survive that struggle. We tend to count the cost of war only in those who never made it home. But some who did make it home were never fully able to leave the war behind. They gave their lives in service too, and they belong in our remembering.

So this Memorial Day, I am going to spend that one day the way it is meant to be spent. I will visit graves. I will bring flowers. And I will take my son with me, because he should grow up knowing this day is not simply the kickoff of summer. It is a day with a purpose, and that purpose is to remember.

One hour out of 168. One day out of 365. When you put it that way, it is not much to give at all.

To every Gold Star family: thank you. We remember them