Growing up, Memorial Day meant breakfast in the mountains, bees trying to eat my bacon, and trying to avoid the high, swift river. The day meant smoky charcoal-flavored burgers and potato chips and talking with cousins late into the evening.
The Sunday before we might have gone to the cemetery. Mom would cut peonies for my grandma’s gravesite, and it always took us longer than we thought to find the headstone again. Memories surface of the day my sister and I jumped on our beds in fury when we learned grandma had left us.
Now Memorial Day means remembering the lives given for my freedom. The great, great, great-uncles who died in battle. The great-grandfathers and grandfathers that lived. The many, many people who died.
Today, I lift my figurative glass to all the souls that have gone before (and not just the Light Brigade):
“When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!”
-Tennyson
