Memorials

This is a tough one.  I recognize the importance of memorializing people and events, but the longer one lives, the longer the list of memorials, and it kind of makes one take pause and wonder . . . um . . . what's it all about, Alfie?

Today is Memorial Day, a day that continues to confuse many people, as they think that it is the same as Veterans Day.  Although I come from a family with many relatives who served in the military and/or war, none of them (that I know of) died at war, so the day does not impact me personally, the way that it does some others.  I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to confront this day if I'd lost a father, a brother, a sister, a child to war.  My grandfather served in WWI, both my parents in WWII, and my nephews in Honduras and the Gulf wars of the 80s.  They all came back intact . . . physically, at least.  My neighbors served two tours each in Afghanistan.  Again, they returned physically intact for the most part.

So Memorial Day becomes somewhat abstract to me, as I do not have a friend or relative to memorialize.  There were a couple of boys I knew marginally who perished in VietNam, but one of my best friends returned home from that war, again, physically intact.  I celebrate his survival, but that's not what this day is about.

When my husband died from cancer, in lieu of a funeral, we had a memorial service.  It had great meaning to me, and I put much thought and energy (and tears) into arranging it.  I still recognize the songs that played in the background, ones that I carefully selected.  I can still see our kids' contributions to the service, and I can still recall snippets of the talks that a couple of close friends gave.  That memorial provided me with great comfort, and I can still think back on it and be grateful that I had the presence of mind to honor his memory in the way that I did.

And so maybe that's what I'm in love with . . . the idea that one can memorialize the people who personally meant something.  Instead of one day of the year set aside as Memorial Day, when most of us are supposed to honor people we didn't even know, maybe the day should be expanded to include all of the souls that have left us in an untimely and disturbing manner?  I have often thought about this in regard to the 9/11 memorial.  Of course, that was a terrible tragedy, and its victims are worthy of being memorialized.  But so are the people who have died untimely and terrible deaths from cancer or AIDS or heart failure or car accidents or drive-by shootings or mass murders.  There are many ways to die.  War is one.  I'm just not convinced that it needs top billing over all the other ways that hearts are forever broken by the untimely death of a loved one.

So let us each memorialize those we loved in our own way.  Wave a flag, have a barbecue, visit a cemetery, hike a nature trail, listen to music . . . do whatever it is that honors the one you loved and lost.  And instead of feeling that stir of artificial patriotism, feel something real, something rooted in love.