Memorial Day Blues

Today is Memorial Day in the USofA. Not often do I get holidays off, but they decided to give me this Memorial Day off. It was a really nice day today as well. Sun was shining, went on a hike with my family and did BBQ at their place.

I would like to emphasize the niceness of the day. I've never in the twenty-four Memorial Days I've ever been in has been nice. It's always been rainy and overcast. Almost as if the idea of Memorial Day makes the world seem to be sad.

Sometimes it's just like this picture. The Earth is happy on any other day.

I have lived most of my life in Idaho, and it's always been raining. I was in Utah once during the holiday. It rained. Heck, I went to Colorado for my mission for my church. Both years it didn't rain. It poured!

The day is a somber one to be sure. Some of us have dear close loved ones that have been laid to rest underneath the Earth. But, some like us, the only close relative we have had to bury was one grandparent. And I've still got five kicking around like they are in their late twenties. 

Can't argue if they are in good spirits, can we?

I remember as a kid driving around to all the graves of family that had been dead for so long that they meant nothing to me than words in marble. As I've gotten older and moved out of my parents place, I've only visited one grave. And that was my Grandpa. 

But is the message of Memorial Day "mourn with those who mourn"? Should we not take time to look at not only the graves of family but also of those who have long lost passed away that weren't related to us? Or is Memorial Day meant to be a closer-to-the-vest type of holiday? One in which we are introspective and give others time to be alone, to work out their own grief.

Memorial Day was originally a Civil War holiday. It was meant to steer the nation towards honoring those that had fallen in battle to keep the United States united. Many Southern states, in a move of sheer spite, created their own days, and failed to observe the day the government had set up. I believe some of the ex-Confederate states still choose not to observe the national Memorial Day.

There is a story about a group of Northern and Southern women arrived at one the battlefields where thousands had perished. The northern women refused to allow the Southern women to place flowers on the graves of their dead husbands and sons, citing to the victors go the spoils. That night, a thunderstorm swept the land, and the next day, it was discovered that all the flowers on the northern graves had been "blown by the storm" to cover the graves of the southern dead.

According to some new studies, as many as 80,000 civilians died during the Civil War.

I choose to believe that Memorial Day, while it serves it's purpose, has a deeper meaning not usually thought of. Why is that that only one day of the year that we decide to visit the dead and remember them? Is it simply we choose to compartmentalize them and relegate them to the "never forgotten but never present" category of our lives? Some (as is right) never forget the pain of the lost gap in their lives left by those who had passed on.

But shouldn't we be focused on the dead anyways in our daily lives? Not the dead for being dead. But to keep us honest by the examples (both good and bad) that they showed us in life? Is not the true meaning of Memorial Day a way for us to not only visit the dead but to also take stock of how we have honored the surnames we bear that they gave us? 

My family has a long history of service. Service to nation. Service to the crown. Service to God. Service to fellow man. Have I honored that legacy of service and self-sacrifice? Have I added laurels to the standards of the clan that I am a part of? Are the scars that I have left on the name of valiant attempts to do justice and right, if if I failed in the end?

In summation, do we really honor the dead by having a holiday? Or is it not as important as it is to live to the fullest to make them proud if they watch us from beyond the veil? I would like to think actions speak louder than dates on a calendar.

Thank goodness for the Day Off!