Memorial Day 2007

In the '50s and '60s my grandparents would work through Memorial Day and didn't seem to feel they were being cheated in anyway for not observing the holiday. As a child I thought they were missing out as we went off to the lake with our boat to welcome the first weekend of the summer swim season. Guess who didn't do anything to mark the holiday yesterday? Actually, I was busy most of the three days of the weekend but we didn't have any Memorial Day plans. I accompanied my daughter on a grocery shopping trip to Meijers yesterday morning. When I returned, my husband grilled a couple of burgers and we shared our Memorial Day cook out with each other at the kitchen table. Nothing special, nothing big, BUT, very relaxing and restful. I didn't feel like we were missing out on a thing that we didn't have a big cookout planned or that we weren't going anywhere for the day. I suppose one would say we are getting old. If getting old includes being content, bring it on.
On Sunday evening, my husband and I drove to the local cemetery and took a walk around. I grew up in this community and because it was small, I knew most of the people whose bodies are laid to rest there. There are some that were from before my time but I am always surprised that I can put faces with most of the names on those stones. It is a walk back in time and somehow I think a good practice to review history as I recall each one and how families are tied together, etc. I noticed that my 87 year old father had been there prior to our visit and planted some geraniums on his parent's and my mother's graves. He never misses a year. I admire him for that. Even though he is remarried, he has not forgotten my mother, his first wife. I noticed that my mother's parent's graves had no flowers so I determined to get back to the cemetery some time over the weekend to get something on the grave so that other visitors would know by the sight of their grave that they were loved, appreciated and remembered.
So yesterday afternoon when the rain stopped and the sun broke out, we called our daughter and asked if she and the kids wanted to meet us there. Our daughter, feeling the importance of showing her children respect for the ancestors who have gone before, met us there. After we planted something on their great grandparent's graves, we took a walk with our grandaughers. It was so interesting to see the decorations on the graves. It gave new meaning to the old name of the holiday which was "Decoration Day". There were some graves elaborately adorned. Others were marked with a small single blooming plant. Some of those marked with a single plant were very old graves. It warmed my heart that the family had not forgotten those people. Silk flower pieces were the choice of many. One need not worry about watering those.
One grave marker was extremely elaborate. It was very wide and covered several grace sites. The marker was for only two people so it was obvious the wife had purchased more than two graves in order to have room for the huge grave stone. On either side of the stone are two very large urns each filled with a cazillion geranuims. Beautiful? Yes. Overdone? Depends on one's opinion. My eleven year old grandaughter looked at the grave, pointed to it and said, "What does it matter, they are dead, they don't know it anyway!". I had to smile. Even at eleven, her system of values is keen enough that she could draw a line and say that was too much.. She is right. There is a difference between honoring a departed loved one or building a shrine. Many years ago, my eldest daughter and I visited a beautiful Spanish Catholic church in southern Arizona. I have been there several times since and it is one of my favorite places. On one of my visits, a funeral was in progress and the church was closed to the public. I listened to the angelic singing coming through the short arch shaped wooden door. Later I watched as they put the pine box on the back of a pickup truck, along with flowers in pop bottles vases wrapped in aluminum foil. I visited the cemetery on my way back to the main highway. The decorations were common items and colorful. There were trinkets of every kind; flags, silk flowers, pictures, angel replicas, dolls, teddy bears, crosses and many pop bottle vases with a flower bud. It reminded me of a hospital experience I had when one of my children was in the children's unit. A gypsy family had a very sick child in one of the cribs. The crib was lavished with every imaginable trinket. My guess is that those items were supposed to make the child well or at least bring good luck. It made me very sad that they were relying on those things. I feel somewhat the same way when I see some of the grave sites at our own cemetery. It is sobering when those very decorated graves are those of Christian family members. It makes me wonder, what is their motive? I'm with my grandaughter on this one. It is most important and appropriate to honor those who have gone before us. On the other hand, to lavish a gravesite with elaborate flowers and enumerable trinkets, seems to me to be inappropriate. As Sydney said, "They are dead. They don't know. What's the point?" We don't communicate with the dead. Those departed souls are with Jesus and no amount of flowers and trinkets will bring them back to earth nor would they want to come back. Let's let them go in dignity and peace. Honor them with a flower? Yes. Build a shrine for them? No. To do so smells pagan to me.