It would be so easy to write about people fighting for our freedoms, or about thanking those that have served. It would be easy to write about patriotism, and all the things that make this nation great. It would even be easy to write something poetic about the meaning of this day.
It is much harder to write about the reality of why we need this day.
Today is the day set aside for Americans to recall their war dead. Beyond conversations about duty or sacrifice, there is the loss of a parent, spouse, sibling, or child. Friends are lost, and communities altered forever by the death of a soldier.
Beyond any meaning we can attach to why someone is taken, often in terrible circumstances, there is also the reality that families grieve the death of a loved one, their lives turned upside down.
Memorial Day is so much more than ceremony, prose, or flag waving. It is a day of mourning.
Regardless of how you feel about patriotism, war, or politics, I am of the strongest belief that today is a day to reflect upon the profound sadness or nations losses. It is with the greatest sorrow that we have, in every generation, had to have Memorial Days where those we remember are not from the pages of history books, but from our yearbooks and photo albums.
Today we mourn those taken from us, and all of those whose deaths touched us.
No comments:
Post a Comment