by Lady Liberty
06/15/2003

From its small and solemn beginnings, Memorial Day has become not just a day to remember fallen soldiers, but the kick-off of the summer season. There are still parades filled with flags and red, white and blue banners, and somber services at cemeteries. But there's also a booming market in recipes for red, white and blue foods to serve your extended family at the season's first cook-out. The tombstones of veterans often have small American flags fluttering beside them (cemeteries in my area were festooned with yellow ribbons this year as well). At the same time, Wal Mart does a box-office business in sporting goods to supply the outdoor fun and games so many families enjoy over the course of the three-day holiday weekend.

When I was a child, I can remember getting up early in the morning on Memorial Day and walking in the woods on a search for the first spring wildflowers (we lived in the Minnesota countryside, and the end of May typically brought the earliest blooms to follow the harsh winters there). My younger sister and I picked yellow bell worts, and hepaticas in lavender and white. Tiny purple violets were added to the bouquets, and in unusually warm years the first of the columbine blossoms were included, too. We always took extra care to get the prettiest flowers because the bouquets were for Grandpa's grave.

We never knew my grandfather. He died before I was even a year old. My mother often spoke of her father, though, and told stories with such warmth and laughter that I almost felt like I'd spent time with him. He was a farmer who worked hard all his life, but he had a sense of humor that was in direct proportion to his great responsbilities. He smoked and he swore, he kept cows and chickens, and he never took anything too seriously. When my mother took a stick and painted the fence by the barn with very fresh and sticky cow manure, my grandmother was horrified. Grandpa, I'm told, laughed until he was sick. And when my mother insisted on keeping a chicken in the house as a pet, it was Grandpa who took her side until Grandma relented and gave the bird free reign in her kitchen.

My mother had some of her father's things stored in a trunk. She didn't open the trunk often, but when she did, we were treated to a history lesson involving love, war, and great sacrifice. Grandpa fought in the trenches of France during World War I. He left his family and the woman he loved to board a ship overseas. When he finally returned home, uninjured but not unchanged, the only stories he told were funny ones. His military issue helmet was in the trunk, and so were packets of letters he'd sent home to his young wife. The funny stories hadn't been written down, but they were doled out by my mother along with Grandpa's canteen and boots (at least the ones suitable for children's ears).

There were pictures of Grandpa in our house, and so I always had his face in my mind's eye when my father drove the family into town and to the cemetery. We were all dressed up as if for church, and my sister and I both held jars of water we used as vases for the flowers we picked. I was never fond of church services (I found them dull at best), but I didn't complain about the Memorial Day services. I was in awe of the men in uniform, and I invariably got teary-eyed when the trumpeter played Taps. (I liked the 21-gun salute quite a bit, too, despite the fact my mother wouldn't let me search for shell casings afterward.) But what I remember most is walking to Grandpa's grave and seeing all of the little flags placed on the graves of the veterans.

It didn't matter to me then (and it doesn't matter to me now, either) whether the men beneath the soil died in combat or, like my grandfather, died many years after their service was complete. What mattered was that they'd served at all. Even as a child, I'd look up from Grandpa's grave and, just for a moment, give a silent salute to all of those others whose names I didn't know. On Memorial Day if on no other day of the year, soldiers were honored, and those who had died were remembered with a twinge of grief and a great swell of pride.

This year, just about every store in town had a well publicized "Big Sale!" for Memorial Day, and many of them were crowded. The schedule for the morning's services was buried so deep in the local paper I never even found it. This year, the local parade was a big hit because children were bombarded with candy thrown by many of the participants. The marching veterans were all but an afterthought. This year, almost everyone I knew was having a cook-out or family get-together. Of all the people I spoke with, not one had been to a cemetery or mentioned any other token of honor for our many fallen freedom fighters.

Memorial Day is the one day of the year we are charged with remembering. If we forget those who have fought and bled and died for us and our way of life every other day of the year, we should at the very least remember them on Memorial Day. Failing to honor their sacrifices speaks ill of our respect not only for them, but for their cause. And as the Constitution itself seems to garner less attention and respect (not to mention far less time in the classroom), I fear it's only a matter of time until it, too, shall be relegated largely to memory. And how will those of us who do remember mark the occasion then?

Lady Liberty