When I was kid my family always visited the cemetery on Memorial Day. It was the one time of year we’d take flowers and place them on the graves of many of my relatives. We stopped doing that when I reached my teenage years.
Now that I’m in my late 40’s, those cemeteries are filled with more people that I knew well. My grandmother, my dad, my uncle, my wife’s mom and dad, her grandfather. I find myself thinking of these people a lot more these days. I don’t know if its age or life or what.
I like the fact that we set aside a day to remember those who not only fought and died for our country, but also for those who fought for us and are no longer here.
I probably won’t get to the cemetery today or even this weekend.
I visit more often than once a year though. Perhaps that’s because the people who are dying now were more intimately connected to me.
Whether we make it to the cemetery really isn’t the point anyway.
The point is to remember.
Not just what they did for us.
But who they were.