Today is Memorial Day, a day on which we are to remember and honor the men and women in uniform who gave their lives in defense of our country, and for many others, a day on which we remember and honor all of our family members who are no longer with us on this earth. So what do we as American generally do on Memorial Day?: We cook out, go to the beach, do yardwork, or just plain goof around. Now I'm not saying that doing those things is bad (after all, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer--and a day off for most), but perhaps it's not completely in the spirit of what Memorial Day is supposed to represent.
On Memorial Day 1998, I dragged my future wife to Belleville, Michigan, a town halfway between Detroit and Ann Arbor where several of my ancestors are buried. My maternal great-grandmother, great-grandfather, and a slew of others on my mom's side of the family have their eternal resting spots in Belleville. In the words of the old Blind Lemon Jefferson song, I "made sure their graves were kept clean." I was probably the first person to do this in many years, as I can remember having to tear away lots of overgrown grass away from the stone markers. Unfortunately, that was the last time I've been to Belleville, so I'm sure their graves are covered by tall grass. I can only hope that the markers are not broken.
It bothers me that only once in my life have I visited the gravesites of my deceased family members on Memorial Day, but it feels like the holiday is usually planned several weeks in advance with other obligations, so I never have the chance to lay any flowers and ensure that the graves "are kept clean." I want to do this again.
I've really only visited the graves of ancestors several generations removed. It's a lot easier to remove yourself emotionally since they're people I never actually knew. I can visit with the detachment of an historian. I haven't visited the resting places of my grandparents since their funerals, but at the risk of sounding sappy, the memories of my departed family members are in my heart and soul. Not a day goes by when I don't think of at least one of my grandparents, so everday is Memorial Day (so far, I've been very lucky in that my parents are both still alive and well), so I really don't feel the need to go to their "final resting places."
When I say that I think of my grandparents everyday, I don't mean that I dwell on their existences for hours on end, usually it's a brief flicker of a moment where I'll reflect on something they said or something we did together. Maybe I'll remember a holiday at my grandparents' house when I was a kid, or chuckle at the the thought of one of my Grandma C.'s infamous puns that she was so fond of saying. My head is full of these little snapshots from my past.
Wow, that sure ended up as an unintentionally sentimental post. I'm a Midwesterner, I'm not supposed to write about things like this. Oh well, perhaps this will give all of you in cyberspace a little more insight into the real me.
2 comments:
I take my mother to the Freiberg cemetery ever spring to put flowers on the graves of our relatives there. My grandfather served in Russia (for America) during World War I and my grandmother and him lost 2 children to the Influenze epidemic in 1918. It is kind of sad to see the stones age.
Hello Snell, thanks for taking the time to comment in my blog.
I think it's wonderful that you take your mother to the cemetery every spring, and it sounds like you have a fascinating family history. I can't imagine how painful it must have been for you grandparents to lose two children in the influenza pandemic of 1918.
By the way, I had a college friend who studied in Freiberg for a year (1990-1991). She married a German fellow and as far as I know, still lives in Germany.
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