MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial Day - I have no family, only memories of my dead: my father's blackened nails, caught in a printing press (he never complained); my mother, a bookkeeper at a canning factory, always handing out paychecks to the workingmen first; my sister, who fought workplace discrimination against her mental illness, and won; my niece and godchild, a psychiatrist and the upwardly mobile pride of her working class grandparents. Their Russian immigrant accents, their war and labor camp survivor insistence that anything could be fixed except death. I thank my family for my privileges of education and culture - the museums, the theater, the opera and ballets they sent me to, although they never went themselves, conserving funds, always working. I remember them today, and always.