Our schools are full of children who know Memorial Day is more than just a long weekend.
Every year, Memorial Day weekend arrives with cookouts and sales and long to-do lists. I am not here to judge any of that. I have done it too! There is nothing wrong with a long weekend spent with the people you love.
But I want to take a moment, before the weekend gets away from us, to name what this holiday actually is. Not what it has become in the ads and the promotions…but what it has always been at its core.
Memorial Day is about the people who did not come home.
It is about the families who set a place at the table out of habit before remembering. The children who grew up with a photograph instead of a parent. The spouses who learned to navigate everything alone, not because they chose to, but because their person gave everything they had in service to this country.
I know something about that kind of loss. And I carry it with me into everything I do, including this campaign.
When I talk about military families in District 10, I am not talking about a demographic or a voting bloc. I am talking about real families, right here in Virginia Beach, whose children sit in our classrooms carrying weight that most of their classmates cannot see. The kid who moved three times in four years and is still trying to find his footing. The teenager processing grief without the words for it. The family rebuilding after a deployment, or after something far more permanent.
These families deserve a School Board member who does not just thank them for their service at a podium…and move on. They deserve someone who shows up for their children in the policies she fights for, in the resources she demands for every school, and in the seat she holds accountable to every family in this district.
That is why I am running.
This weekend I am asking you to hold a little space, wherever you are, for the ones who are not here. And if you are ready to help build something in their honor, something that actually serves the families they left behind, I hope you will join me at the Virginia Beach Democratic Local Candidate Caucus on June 20th, noon to 3pm at Bow Creek Recreation Center.
More details to come. But the ask is simple: show up. For them, and for every child in District 10 who needs us to.
The true meaning of Memorial Day.
This day belongs to them.
Friends, I want to tell you about Esley.
He was from New Jersey. I‘m from New Orleans. And somehow, we just fit. That is the only way I know how to say it. Our marriage just worked.
He learned to cook my New Orleans style, and he took it seriously. He was always in the kitchen, always at the grill, always making something for the people he loved. And for no reason at all, or every reason in the world, he would show up with chocolate covered strawberries and candles. Not just for holidays. Just because.
He was a singer. A jokester. A sensitive soul who always knew how to make me laugh. He was all in on us, all in on our family, all in on being a father to our kids.
He was everything.
Today is Memorial Day. And today I am not speaking as a candidate. I am speaking as someone who carries the weight of this day in a very personal way.
Every family who has lost someone in service to this country knows that weight. It does not lift. Not on Memorial Day, not on any other day. What changes, over time, is what you do with it.
I carry Esley with me into everything I do.
If you have lost someone, I see you today. I am with you.
