Another day of memorial, this one is present and thus, to me, much less poignant than Yom Ha'Shoah was last week, for some reason.
Dead soldiers and dead civilian victims, killed in War and Terror.

My feelings are mixed.
Last year I was depressed and the whole thing washed over me and was dimmed into the background of my own personal self pity and pain, to do with the war I participated in.
Now everything feels sharp, not the pain, but the facade of the (necessary and important) ceremonies in which the names of the dead will be spoken and candles will be lit, is so much more clear to me.
The ceremonies seem like theatrics to me. But I'll go to my elementary school where every year, younger and younger (because every year I get older) children stand on the grass slope where they will sing the same songs as last year, recite the same poems and maybe the choreography of the dance will be different, though I doubt it.
I'll go because dead men and women need to be remembered and at this point this is what we have.

Tomorrow is Independence Day, always after Memorial Day, so that we know what those dead men and women fought, lived and died for.

Korin Alal (though Ehud Manor wrote it) puts into words the way I feel best on these days... even if they are mixed:

I have no other land
Even if the ground is burning
Only a word in Hebrew, penetrating
Into my veins, my soul
In an aching body,
In a hungering heart.
Here is my home

I will not be silent, for my land
Changed her face
I will not concede to her
I will sing in her ear
Until she opens her eyes