The Cardboard Box

On several occasions when I was at their house, my grandmother would be looking for something and have to move this cardboard box that always sat at the top of their closet to reach whatever item she was searching for behind it. Each time she would pause, look at the box, and ask me if she had told me about my uncle Leroy, her brother-in-law, my grandfather's handsome young brother, a sergeant in the US Army Signal Corps during World War II.

My grandmother would write to Leroy when he was in training and continued to write when he went overseas. He would write her back and my grandmother would always bring those letters over to read them to her mother-in-law. Then in June of 1944 she received a letter that was not in his handwriting. A nurse had penned it and explained that Leroy had broken his neck as his vessel arrived at a beach in a place named Normandy. The nurse continued that he had wanted to let my grandmother and his mother know he was getting better and not to worry as he was hopeful that he would recover. But several weeks later, Leroy's mother received another letter, a sadder one, from the War Department.

Leroy's body was shipped back to the United States. He was buried in his hometown and his mother accepted his casket flag during the service. The flag eventually made its way to my grandfather and grandmother, and they kept it wrapped in paper in that cardboard box in the closet, One day, several years after my grandfather had passed away, my grandmother asked me if I there was anything that I wanted to inherit. I thought about it, and finally asked if I could have Leroy's flag. She smiled, and handed me the cardboard box.

The flag is on my wall today in a frame with Leroy's service photo, having never been unfolded since the day it was handed to my great-grandmother.

Have a thankful Memorial Day.