Memorial Day

The media is all over telling us that Memorial Day is the beginning of Summer. What a cheerful thought! Everyone is happy to have a day off from work, and kids are glad to be home from school. Advertisers are flooding us with their sales: From patio furniture and spring flowers to new cars and jewelry half-off. I even saw one ad calling it Moo-morial day. (I forget...was that for milk?) Many folks are traveling to see family and friends. What a happy picture of American life.

I can't help but wonder why no one is talking about the Blood.

Of course, blood is not a happy subject. It does not conjure up visions of backyard BBQs and newly planted flowerbeds. Blood is serious and solemn. Blood is precious...necessary...the thing of life itself. Yet, this weekend is about nothing if not the blood of sacrifice and the price of freedom.

When attending any memorial, I feel sad of course, but also grateful for having known that person. It is healing to gather with others as we tell the stories of that life, remembering together what they meant to us, and slowly transforming our grief into gratitude. The kids are always there running around, but they, too, are learning about that person and the impact that life made upon us. If you ask them later during bath time what it was all about, they will always be able to tell you.

This is what Monday should be: A Memorial Service.

Let us do it this year: Set aside a time to reflect, remember, teach the kids, and treasure those who paid the high price of Liberty for us all.  

We cherish too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies.

-Moina Michael  (1915)