I’m not sure what your Memorial Day weekend plans include. For many, those plans will range from cookouts with family or friends to attending parades to going to baseball games to watching the annual live musical concert on PBS. Though summer does not officially arrive until a month from now, essentially Memorial Day inaugurates it. Schools are closing. Pools are opening. Charcoal grills, long dormant during the winter months, are being dusted off and readied for action. People are traveling. And highway patrol officers are waiting for drivers who are in too much of a hurry to get it all started.
The title of the day reminds us of what it was created to be: a day for remembering. Not to diminish the importance of all the fun festivities, at its heart Memorial Day is more and deeper than that. Originally called Decoration Day (because of the tradition of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers, wreaths, and flags), Memorial Day has been observed since 1868. That’s when five thousand people (mostly family members and friends) decorated the graves of more than twenty thousand Union and Confederate soldiers who were buried in Arlington National Cemetery. That single event gave birth to countless similar local observances in cities and towns all across the country. In 1873, New York was the first state to officially designate Memorial Day as a holiday. Following WWI, it evolved into a day for remembering from coast-to-coast. For us, it is a time to recall all the men and women who went off to defend freedom in World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places around the world – men and women who were committed that they were protecting democracy and who gave their lives in that effort.
My father and my uncle (Dad’s brother) were in World War II. They were willing to risk everything to oppose the evil of fascism in our world. Thank God, they both returned home safely. But each occasionally called names in ways that sounded almost sacred, cherished names of friends who had died in battle. The simple way they spoke the names … the softness … the lingering silence afterward … all of that implied that the act of remembering was also an act of giving thanks (thanks for the courage, the devotion, and the price paid by individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of liberty). That’s what Memorial Day is about. It’s about remembering who stood between us and whatever would threaten the freedoms we enjoy. It’s about calling the names we know and recalling in some way the countless thousands of others we do not know, and saying a prayer of thanks.
At some point, it would seem, the act of remembering those whose lives were lost should inspire those of us who are still alive. Inspire us to defend liberty. Inspire us to oppose rigid authoritarianism that diminishes human freedoms. Inspire us to stand up and speak out in defense of those who do not possess the power to defend themselves. Inspire us to offer thanks for those who went before, giving their lives to protect and enhance the quality of our own. Obviously, people who honor the highest values cherish peacefulness and abhor violence. But moments in history come when forces take up arms not to initiate violence but to defend themselves and their neighbors against it. This is a weekend to remember with deep respect those who gave their lives to protect ours.
Have a safe and happy Memorial day. Play. Relax. Enjoy. But, here and there amid it all, spend some time remembering.