Remembering to Remember

This was a memorable Memorial Day for yours truly.

My dad is buried in the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery. It's a pleasant drive for us -- rolling hills, roads that are a perfect combination of straight and curved, with rural scenery that suits the eye. Arriving to see so many grave sites, each with a flag placed there by a caring volunteer, was a touching experience in itself. We found that someone had left a pot of white mums by Dad's tombstone, interestingly enough setting it off center as though she knew I would be there soon with an arrangement of my own. No card, but I have a good idea who put it there, and I appreciate that she cared enough about my dad to make the drive from San Francisco. I wish our paths had crossed so that I could have given her a hug.

Received an e-mail from a friend in Illinois. Her husband has an ancestor who fought in the Civil War. I didn't ask which side. What does it matter? What does matter is that every year at this time my friend and her husband visit their soldier's grave to leave flowers. Even though they never knew him personally. They knew of him, and sometimes that's enough. Visiting a cemetery on Memorial Day is an opportunity to care about all the heroes there, whether known to you or not.

Reminds me of a poem I wrote when my son went to Iraq. It started with, "There are those who leave and those who stay, those who fight and those who pray" and ended with "Those who live and those who die, and every mother wonders why." If you think that each flag at a grave site on Memorial Day represents one life lost, you're only partially correct. Each flag also represents many hearts broken.

Heroes are the ones who make personal sacrifices so that others can have a better life. Sometimes it's a soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder, sometimes it's a passerby who pulls an old man from a burning car. Sometimes it's a mother who leaves her family to serve in a foreign country. Sometimes it's a father who stands by silently as a new baby gets all his wife's attention. Sometimes it's a new mom who doesn't get to take a shower for days, or a dad that comes home dirty from a hard day's work, but can't wait for a shower before he loves on his daughters. Sometimes it's a single dad who learns to cook and do laundry. Sometimes it's a single mom who simply does whatever she needs to do to give her kids a decent life.

I know all these people personally. And I know there are hundreds of thousands more heroes just like them, that I'll never know. Personally. But I care.

I knew a man named Ed, whose kids took his ashes this weekend to a favorite fishing spot. He was an interesting person. He was a hard worker and did more than his share of partying, but then who am I to judge? He was a Southern gentleman, complete with the sort of charm that has its own way with the truth, as others know it. My favorite story though is about that stage of Alzheimer's when his sons had to put him in "a home." They took his cigarettes away from him that day and when Ed, a chain smoker, patted his shirt pocket for a Camel, his sons said to him, "Dad! You quit smoking a long time ago!" He said, "I did?" "Yep," they told him. "A long time ago!" So he forgot about smoking, and forgot to have withdrawal symptoms, too.

Sometimes forgetting is a good thing. Sometimes remembering is a good thing too. So it's okay to remember to forget what's best forgotten, but never okay to forget to remember those people and events that make our lives worthwhile.