One of the things that I feel the most pride in, is the sacrifice that our servicemen and women do while protecting our freedoms and our way of living. Many of them make the ultimate sacrifice and give their lives in the process. For all of those who have family who visits them, they can count on their relatives taking care of their final resting place which includes their tombstones.
There are those that that left no one to visit them. No brother, no wife or husband. Their resting places started to look abandoned. You could not even see the name in most of them. That is until Andrew Lumish came into the picture. Andrew is a volunteer that uses his skills to make these places beautiful again. He works as a cleaner and does this every single day. When you are cleaning all day every day, you would think the last thing you would like to do on your day off is cleaning, right?
Not in Andrew’s case. He normally works six days a week. His area of specialty is carpet cleaning and upholstery. In his work, he has access to all sorts of powerful cleaning agents which he uses to leave every carpet spotless. Carpets are not the only surfaces that he specializes in. He does perfect work on floors of any kind as well.
The thing that has been getting the most headlines recently is not his day job, but what he does in his free time. However, the way that he chooses to spend his free is not going fishing or hanging out with his friends at a bar. Instead of this, he cleans old tombstones of veterans that have been damaged by years and years of neglect. He uses his expertise to restore them to their past glory.
Depending on the seriousness of the condition, it can sometimes be completed in minutes. There are a lot of tombstones that need work, so this job is actually monumental. Months and months of his time are invested in cleaning these tombstones. His objective is to restore all the materials, especially the marble in these sites, without causing any secondary damage. He wants everyone who visits them to be able to read what they state and commemorate the fallen soldiers.
When he does this, he doesn’t only clean them but brings them back to life. This is what helps people know who they were and commemorate them. This is an awesome job and he’s the right man to do it. This is his story.
