When we are weary and in need of strength We remember them
When we are lost and sick at heart We remember them
When we have joy we crave to share We remember them
When we have decisions that are difficult to make We remember them
When we have achievements that are based on theirs We remember them
As long as we live, they too will live;
for they are now a part of us and We remember them.
Above was part of a liturgy we repeated at our local UU congregation yesterday.
A holiday that now ushers in pool and summer season with BBQ and gatherings, Memorial Day once included honoring my ancestors. As a child I would go with my parents to the cemetery and “help” trim the grass around the stones and clean them. I was too young to have really known or remember the people buried beneath them and dreaded the holiday.
My parents still spend Memorial Day caring for those graves, only now I have connections to them. A special grandmother, a heroic grandfather, a dear daughter, a beloved friend: joy and pain live on in their memories. But the cemeteries are over a thousand miles away and we neither have flowers to bring nor stones to clean. The memories fade too fast, their voices and laughter more difficult to hear.
Do we need Memorial Day to help them live on, to give us pause from the frenzy of everyday? Or are the natural moments of life, the joys and decisions and achievements enough? How do you remember those who have gone before and how do you prevent the forgetting?
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Nice post. We do need Memorial Day to give us time to pause and remember loved ones no longer with us. Bringing flowers to the cemetary is one way to accomplish this. When distance prohibits participating in this ceremony, other ways of showing love and reverence for these lives can substitute.
I have a dear friend buried in a cemetery I’ve never seen. In my mind sometimes I go there and leave offerings. It’s almost as if I’ve been there, like a experience you wonder if you dreamed.