“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to move. This section is for veterans.”
The young man said it politely. He had a clipboard and a lanyard and a red, white, and blue polo shirt with Harmon Parks and Recreation stitched over the pocket. He was maybe twenty-six. He was smiling the way people smile when they’ve already decided how a conversation is going to end.
My mother was sitting in her green lawn chair on the curb in front of Ostby’s Hardware, right where she has sat every Memorial Day for forty-one years.
She was eighty-one. She had on her red cardigan, even though it was already seventy-five degrees at nine-thirty in the morning, because she always wears the red cardigan on Memorial Day. On the left side, just over her heart, was a small enamel pin. A red cross on a white shield. I had seen it every Memorial Day of my life and never once asked what it was.
There was a new rope this year. White nylon, strung on little metal stakes along the edge of the curb for half a block. And every ten feet, a laminated sign zip-tied to the rope.
VETERANS SEATING ONLY.
Mom had set her chair up behind the rope. In front of it, technically. Right where she always set it.
“I know,” she said.
The young man blinked. “You know?”
“I know it’s for veterans.”
“Okay. Great. So if you could just move back behind the barrier, there’s plenty of room back by the bank.” He pointed down the sidewalk with his pen. “We’re trying to make this year really special for our vets. It’s the first year we’ve done reserved seating.”
Mom looked at him for a long moment.
I was standing behind her chair holding two cups of coffee from the Cenex. I opened my mouth.
She lifted one hand off the arm of the chair. Just a little. Just enough.
I closed my mouth.
“Of course,” she said.
She stood up. It took her a second. Her knees aren’t good anymore. She folded the lawn chair, the way she’s folded it a thousand times, snapping the arms in, and she tucked it under her left arm.
The young man smiled. “Thank you so much, ma’am. Enjoy the parade.”
He walked off down the curb toward the next person.
Mom started walking toward the bank.
I followed her with the coffee.
“Mom.”
“Hush.”
“Mom, you were—”
“I said hush, Carol.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“No. He doesn’t.” She kept walking. “And it’s his parade. He’s worked hard on it. You can see he has.”
“It’s not his parade. It’s—”
She stopped and looked at me. It was a look I hadn’t seen since I was about fifteen.
“Carol Ann. I have never in my life asked anyone to make room for me. I’m not going to start on Main Street in front of the whole town.”
She turned and kept walking.
Behind us, the high school band started up at the corner of First Street. The parade had begun.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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