Remembering those who didn't come home

One of the sound bites I heard over the Memorial Day weekend was, “It's not about your cookout.” That's not entirely true. 

When Memorial Day got “bundled,” becoming part of a three-day weekend, it created the potential for its meaning not to be lost but to be sidelined. When it was a stand-alone each year May 30 it carried more weight — as in this is THE day. The day we remember the ones who died in our country's uniform.

My friend of 65 years is visiting from Tucson. Her dad came home from Omaha Beach and the D-Day invasion in World War II, to live his life and start his family. He didn't talk about it — until he was interviewed on television in Spokane for the 50th anniversary. By the time he landed — he was a tank gunner — there were bodies everywhere, in the water and on the beach.

Had I witnessed this I don't know that I'd be wanting to picnic or shop the sales on the day of remembrance for these and other soldiers. The scene cries out, “Stop! Remember me. This is what it is to take down a deranged dictator with insatiable desires. I wanted to come home. I had a life, things I hoped to do. Look at me here on this beach, in this water. Let it mean something.”

So there is this — never to be forgotten. The other part of the story is the why in the fight — to preserve and to create freedom. To establish a way of life for all that says on the holiday weekend, “Go have a cookout. Gather together with family and friends. Laugh. Play some backyard baseball. Reserve your campsite. Pack your fishing gear. Live with joy. Live unafraid.”

I just finished a book I cannot recommend highly enough, “The Choice,” a memoir by clinical psychologist Dr. Edith Eva Eger, who is still living and is a survivor of Auschwitz. She sought to find meaning in her suffering, to not forget or hide from it, but to embrace all of life and “do the high kick.” In her story, she recalls the American soldier who, noticing her head moving slightly, pulled her barely alive from a pile of corpses. The first food he had to give was “little beads of color.” They were M&Ms.

This woman is living fully and, thankfully, strengthening countless others, knowing what she was saved from by soldiers who risked the fight. This is what honors them. To not squander our choices — to love others, to support the dreams of fellow human beings, to unite in our families, and to stay grateful and giving. 

Any fallen soldier would be appreciative to tears to be able to attend a Memorial Day cookout. If you had one, I hope it was exceptional. That somewhere in there was a thought for the ones who couldn't come, who have given all they had to make our country a place where we can have our picnics in peace.