Proud Remembrance

Each year on this day, I spend quite a bit of time contemplating friends and family who died in the service of our country. Also, friends that were made while I served in the Navy who have passed away since that time. And I think about the uncle I was named for who died late in 1943. Finally, I consider the significance of Memorial Day. A few years ago, I wrote about Memorial Day. 

This year, when rereading this blog post, my attention has been drawn to the initial reason for Decoration Day (what Memorial Day was originally called). Here in a Southern state, examination of our history regarding race, slavery, and those who may have owned slaves is an interesting process involving suffering, contentiousness, invidiousness, jealousy, disdain, and pride. We want to rewrite our history from the perspective of the 21^st century rather than as it happened. We don’t want to remember our history as it was, we want to see it as we wish that it was.

Remembering those who have died in the military while in service for our country cannot, should not be a process of heroic designation any more than of vilification. Most of us who, in the service of our country, were neither heroes nor traitors. We were members of our families, communities, and military branches. We have contributed as our nature and circumstances have allowed. Those who died in that service contributed their lives, not always sacrificed for a higher cause, and not always circumstantially.

When looking back on our memories this Memorial Day, as Joni Mitchell so wonderfully pointed out, we might look at both sides now. We should see our “illusions” and realize that we don’t have the answers, that we really don’t know much about life ("Both Sides Now"). Some things lost and some things gained. I really don’t know life and, therefore, remembering the death of those innocents who served metaphorically alongside us – our peers in a common experience – this is very important to me.

Remembering ordinary souls with pride is helpful in maintaining a perspective on our own ordinary lives. What is ordinary is also special as we are all anchored in a very particular place in time and space, the children of parents, the parents of children, cousins, aunts and uncles with long histories behind and unknown futures. Memorial Day is not for heroes. Memorial Day is about finding perspective.