Memorial Day, Remembering Someone I Never Knew

Some people say, "Happy Memorial Day", and when I went looking for a picture to post here I kept running into images (including flashing ones with fireworks) that said that. Of course, I'd like to send some kind of "Hope you enjoy this holiday weekend" kind of message here (and I hope this thread serves to do just that).

Actually, I'm kind of surprised not to see any mention of Memorial Day on the HubPages forums. It is, of course, an American holiday. Maybe some forum threads will start showing up Monday. Maybe, too, people have been too busy this weekend, enjoying the long weekend with families and friends and planning for any events Monday.

From the time I was a child, and we'd go to the Memorial Day parade, my mother would say how the parade for this holiday was a "sadder" one because the parade was more subdued and focused on the trip to cemetery, where flags would be placed on the graves of those who served the country in war (even though Memorial Day was about those who had lost their lives in service to the country). She would also frequently say, "Memorial Day isn't a day to say, 'Happy Memorial Day', because it isn't really a happy day. It's a day when we remember those who died in war." She'd then be quick to add, "You're supposed to be happy and have a nice time, but it's just not a day to say, 'Happy Memorial Day'".

The reason my mother made it a point to keep reminding us that Memorial Day is a "different kind of holiday" was that she, herself, was thinking of her 24-year-old first husband (with whom she had no children), who had been killed in World War II. She had later married my father and gone on to have my two siblings and me. I was about ten before my mother thought I was old enough to hear that before marrying my father, she had, been married to someone else.

She showed me a box full of keepsakes and mementos, as well as items associated with his service. She also showed me the wedding picture, with the 23-year-old her standing with her young husband in his uniform.

Once I knew the story and saw what her first husband look like, life returned to normal (although my mother was then freer to mention him, or losing him, as I continued to grow older).

Yesterday, as we always do for holidays, my sister and I went to the cemetery where both our mother and father now rest. The veterans' flags line whole sections of the cemetery, because, of course, they're placed next to the graves of veterans in preparation for Monday's parade and service. There's a flag next to my parents' grave because my father was veteran of WWII as well. My sister and I have often said, though, that our mother deserves that flag in her own way, as well.

Her life with my father and us was a good one, and when she lost my father in her fifties I never thought she'd get over it. Still, even if she was happy with the family she'd eventually built, losing that first, young, husband before there was a chance for them to build a family; or a chance for him to return to the home the newlyweds bought before he was called back to service, were a sadness she did carry through her life.

A few years ago, I decided to look up information about my mother's first husband, mostly because I'd realized that the Internet offered ways of getting that information that I'd never before have been able to get so easily. As I was looking for whatever information I could find about him, I realized that if he hadn't been killed my siblings and I would not exist. Neither would any of my parents' grandchildren or any great-children who would follow them. It was a strange and sobering thing to realize after all these years, but I reminded myself of the overwhelming numbers of lives lost by people of so many countries in that war. I told myself that that was just how things had been for people of my parents' generation, in the US and in all those other countries where similar stories could be told.

As it happens, Memorial Day is the day on which Americans remember those who died in service to their country. My comments here aren't intended to address any issues beyond the simple fact that this holiday is what it is in this particular country. I'm not overlooking all those other people who also died in service to their country, whether or not their country was America or one of the other countries where thousands and thousands lost their lives.

It's just that this is Memorial Day, and there was once a young man who never got to come home to his young bride and his mother and sister; and even if I didn't ever know him, it's not possible for me to celebrate Memorial Day without thinking of him. In fact, I think of him more often than I, or anyone else, might guess someone in my position ever would.

My mother is no longer here to wrap the wire stem of one of those little, fake, red poppies around the strap of her pocketbook. My sister and I always make sure to get one of those Memorial Day poppies, but this year I didn't happen to run into any of the veterans who are often outside stores in order to give a poppy to anyone making a donation. I do have a small cluster of poppies that I've saved over the years, but without getting one this year, I feel like there's something kind of missing in some odd way. I suppose, inappropriate choice of wording as this may be, that kind of describes the way I've always felt about Edward L., my mother's first husband, as someone in whose life he was never really missing, and yet someone whose presence and sacrifice has never been forgotten - not by his bride, not by his mother and childhood family, and not even by a former ten-year-old girl who grew up sensing the quiet cloud that followed her mother throughout life as a result of his losing his life at only 24 years old.

Last evening I went to a little get-together at my sister's house. In her neighborhood, as in my own, there were rows of the parked cars of guests of those who were having get-togethers for the holiday weekend. Out in yards, and well beyond sundown, the happy voices and laughter of families and friends could be heard on the quiet suburban street. This isn't "the end of the world", I suppose, but someone began shooting off fireworks that broke the sounds of talking and laughter and, instead, brought cheers and other vocalizations that seem so right on the Fourth of July but that somehow don't seem all that right on Memorial Day - at least not to some of us.

I suppose all those years of being raised to realize that "this is a quieter kind of holiday" had their impact on me and my sister, who was the one to say, "This isn't a holiday for fireworks. Fireworks are for the Fourth of July - not Memorial Day." People do things differently, of course, so I suppose my version of celebrating a nice day with family and friends (without fireworks) doesn't have to be everyone else's idea of how to do things. I'm OK, I suppose, with hearing the fireworks and cheers of people who, to me, seem to celebrating Memorial Day with more rowdiness or "whooping it up" than I was raised to believe there should be. What I'm not quite so OK with is thinking that, as the origination of the holiday drops farther and farther into the distant past, too many people do seem oblivious to that reason the holiday was established in the first place. I know there are still many, many, people who raise this issue and find a way to try to pass on this same message that I am, but maybe it's not such a bad thing for a lot of people to try to share the same message.

I'm not the first, nor the last, to mention that enjoying this holiday (and weekend) with our family and friends in peace is a way to honor those who died in service to this country. If we all acted as if we were among the dead and/or acted as if we're so oppressed the only way we should celebrate Memorial Day would be to hang out in cemeteries and mourn all weekend long, that would hardly honor those who served so that generations to follow (or, in some cases, present generations) could share happy times with family and friends in peace.

My mother was always careful to point out that this holiday was "supposed to be enjoyed", and people were "supposed to have a good time". She didn't have to worry that I didn't get her message completely. I KNEW she wasn't against having a good time on Memorial Day. I just knew, too, how much it meant to her that the young man she had loved not be forgotten on the very holiday established to remember people like he.


(Mum, wherever you are, I couldn't get a poppy this year - so this Hub's for you. Neither his sacrifice nor yours will be forgotten if I have any say in the matter.)