Memorial Day

I didn't get Memorial Day until the past few years. I appreciated the day off school, but I thought it was kind of hokey, all the tears and flags and bagpipes. Now I get it. I guess you have to be an adult ... or to lose someone you care about, and need a reason to remember them, to put flowers where their body rests, to let your thoughts dwell there for a day. Then to take a deep breath and get back to living. What a strange, delicate balance.

I started getting it days after September 11, 2001. I attended a assembly on campus at USU. We sang patriotic songs and had a moment of silence for those who died. We were all still in shock from the images on the television, the news over the radio. We were just beginning to process it all. I cried. I felt love for the nation I live in, and love for people I didn't know who were suffering, who had died.

Then I thought about the men I'd seen at parades, in old army uniforms, watching a flag move past, and their tears. They had their moment of pain years before. I wasn't a part of it, but it was still real to them. They needed time to remember their dead. I started to get it.

Life goes on for the living, but the dead are still a part of who we are. Aneka, Catalina, Robert, Grandma Crystal, MA Adams, Grandpa Spook. Deep breath, and on with life.