Every Memorial Day I feel something uncomfortable that I think must be what is called suvivor’s guilt.
No one has ever accused me in person, or been anything but supportive but I still feel accused; as though I must defend my survival and must always come up short in doing so. I can imagine them asking, “Why are you still here, and my brother/son/husband is gone? How is it that you had the opportunity to grow old that was denied to them?”

I know in my heart of hearts, rationally that is, that it was just random. No divine intervention spared me for a higher purpose, as my first wife so foolishly thought, but I still feel an obligation. Something I owe to the dead. I pay that debt by bearing witness, telling people to the best of my ability what it was really like, and sometimes feeling that I have to tell them it was real at all.