From the Editor's Desk
A loss of understanding of Memorial Day
May 25, 2016
For a lot of people today, Memorial Day comes and goes with little significance beyond a three-day weekend and maybe a family barbecue. For whatever reason, there is not the same understanding of the meaning of Memorial Day and why it is important that we don’t forget those who are now gone.
However, for me, Memorial Day is the one day a year that I really get to talk to my kids about my dad. We visit his grave, leave flowers, I cry, and we go home. It’s an annual tradition that I wish I didn’t have to have, but I do. For the last few years, I’ve marked the occasion by snapping a picture of my kids at my dad’s headstone in the Veterans’ Cemetery in Springfield, marking their growth in a snapshot, and thinking about how much he would have loved them.
In American culture, we don’t have celebrations honoring the dead in the same sense as other cultures. What I wouldn’t give for a holiday like Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico to really celebrate those we miss. But what we do have is Memorial Day. Memorial Day originated in the post-Civil War era, initially as Decoration Day, but eventually transitioning to the federal holiday we have now. While initially and officially, Memorial Day is a holiday honoring veterans who have passed, it’s become more of a time for a generation older than my own to take flowers to all loved ones and pay respect to those we’ve lost.
One thing I have noticed as I visit my dad and a few other select relatives each year is that I very rarely see anyone close to my age or even my parents’ age at cemeteries. The widespread apathy regarding a holiday meant to help us remember is rampant, and I don’t think we can blame the millennials for that. Even those 30 years older than myself aren’t in the dwindling numbers trekking through cemeteries the last Monday in May.
While I wasn’t thrilled about visiting the graves of people I’d never met with my parents and grandparents growing up, it did instill a minor understanding of why they went so diligently to so many graves each year, even if I didn’t grasp the gravity of it.
Now, as a mother with children of my own, I drag my three to the cemeteries, too. They never met my dad, a Vietnam War veteran who never talked about his service, my PaPa, a World War II veteran who never talked about his service either, or a number of friends and family members who meant a great deal to me and I like to visit each Memorial Day. But what I hope they do walk away with is the memory of walking to graves of people who may not have meant anything to them but meant a lot to their mom. Perhaps when they are older, they’ll travel the circuit of cemeteries with fresh-cut flowers to visit the people that meant a lot to them, dragging their own kids behind. I hope so. I hope that what I’m teaching them is that it is worth the time to visit those who came and went before us. It’s worth thinking about them, missing them and keeping a tradition alive that doesn’t hold the same meaning to our generation as it did to those a couple generations back.
I miss my dad every day. It’s been over 10 years, and I still think of him constantly at the turn of every important moment in my life. But Memorial Day, I get to think about him in a different way and really talk to my kids about someone they never met but would have loved them beyond the confines of the universe. I’ll keep that memory alive and that tradition alive as long as I’m still here, and I hope I’m raising at least a few who will continue to do so for generations to come.
-Charlea Estes, Editor
For a lot of people today, Memorial Day comes and goes with little significance beyond a three-day weekend and maybe a family barbecue. For whatever reason, there is not the same understanding of the meaning of Memorial Day and why it is important that we don’t forget those who are now gone.
However, for me, Memorial Day is the one day a year that I really get to talk to my kids about my dad. We visit his grave, leave flowers, I cry, and we go home. It’s an annual tradition that I wish I didn’t have to have, but I do. For the last few years, I’ve marked the occasion by snapping a picture of my kids at my dad’s headstone in the Veterans’ Cemetery in Springfield, marking their growth in a snapshot, and thinking about how much he would have loved them.
In American culture, we don’t have celebrations honoring the dead in the same sense as other cultures. What I wouldn’t give for a holiday like Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico to really celebrate those we miss. But what we do have is Memorial Day. Memorial Day originated in the post-Civil War era, initially as Decoration Day, but eventually transitioning to the federal holiday we have now. While initially and officially, Memorial Day is a holiday honoring veterans who have passed, it’s become more of a time for a generation older than my own to take flowers to all loved ones and pay respect to those we’ve lost.
One thing I have noticed as I visit my dad and a few other select relatives each year is that I very rarely see anyone close to my age or even my parents’ age at cemeteries. The widespread apathy regarding a holiday meant to help us remember is rampant, and I don’t think we can blame the millennials for that. Even those 30 years older than myself aren’t in the dwindling numbers trekking through cemeteries the last Monday in May.
While I wasn’t thrilled about visiting the graves of people I’d never met with my parents and grandparents growing up, it did instill a minor understanding of why they went so diligently to so many graves each year, even if I didn’t grasp the gravity of it.
Now, as a mother with children of my own, I drag my three to the cemeteries, too. They never met my dad, a Vietnam War veteran who never talked about his service, my PaPa, a World War II veteran who never talked about his service either, or a number of friends and family members who meant a great deal to me and I like to visit each Memorial Day. But what I hope they do walk away with is the memory of walking to graves of people who may not have meant anything to them but meant a lot to their mom. Perhaps when they are older, they’ll travel the circuit of cemeteries with fresh-cut flowers to visit the people that meant a lot to them, dragging their own kids behind. I hope so. I hope that what I’m teaching them is that it is worth the time to visit those who came and went before us. It’s worth thinking about them, missing them and keeping a tradition alive that doesn’t hold the same meaning to our generation as it did to those a couple generations back.
I miss my dad every day. It’s been over 10 years, and I still think of him constantly at the turn of every important moment in my life. But Memorial Day, I get to think about him in a different way and really talk to my kids about someone they never met but would have loved them beyond the confines of the universe. I’ll keep that memory alive and that tradition alive as long as I’m still here, and I hope I’m raising at least a few who will continue to do so for generations to come.
-Charlea Estes, Editor
