Memorial

Today is Memorial Day in the United States.  My family, like many I suppose, is enjoying a long weekend trip.  This means that I am trying to write away from my normal space on a borrowed lap top which is adding complications to my musing today.  I usually muse from my desk, alone, in my little office off the hall.  Today I am at a long brown table surrounded by the noise and motion of my family.  

The World English Dictionary entry listed at dictionary.com defines memorial. 1.  serving to preserve the memory of the dead or a past event 2.  of or involving memory 3.  something serving as a remembrance According to Peggy Heminitz writing for southwhitehall.patch.com Memorial Day began in May 1868.  A nationwide “Decoration Day” was declared to honor fallen soldiers of the Civil War.  May 30th was selected because it was not the anniversary of any battle and on that day flowers were placed on graves in Arlington Cemetery.  The day gradually became known as Memorial Day and was legally renamed as such in 1967.  The following year the Uniform Holiday Bill moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May to allow for a three day weekend.  Many feel making the holiday a barbeque picnic party day has deteriorated the actual purpose of the day – to preserve the memory of the dead. This year’s last Monday in May just happens to be May 30, the original day established to decorate graves of fallen soldiers.  My imagination sees wives, sisters and daughters in hoop skirts and sun hats, fathers, sons and brothers in pressed dark suits of the 1860’s era stepping from grave to grave offering flowers, serving as a remembrance of lives given in service of their country.  Hopefully no one was debating the right or wrong, who won or lost, but thinking only of love felt for people whose lives were lost and the steep cost of that sacrifice. I’ve never been to Arlington Cemetery.  Their website shows they continue to use Memorial Day to honor soldiers and this year 10,000 roses have been donated to decorate graves.  So, what about me?  Even far away from Virginia I can decorate the graves of deceased soldiers with my own living of this day.  If I do grill out or have a picnic I hope to tell my children about the blessing of freedom.  In the noise of my family, the day to day celebration of our American freedoms I honor those dead fighters.  But I will today try to take it up a mental notch for the people who gave their lives in service, offering the motion of my day in memorial for those dead who made it possible for my family to have this day in peace.