Since we have been working at home for so long, today seems like just another day at home. I have a budget to prepare, calls to make, and work at home to do. But today is different. It should be different. Today is more than hot dogs and hamburgers, beach passes and cutting the grass. It is more than the unofficial beginning of summer. Even without the parades and the large-scale gatherings at beaches and lakes, it should be different.
Today is one of those days to pause and remember.
We should remember why we enjoy the freedom to do the things we love to do. We should remember the sacrifice of someone’s daughter or son, sister or brother, mother, or father. We should remember that it was those sacrifices that give you and me the chance to vote for whomever we choose and then complain about the outcome. We get to speak our minds out loud without fear of recrimination and we get to worship wherever we choose, even if it is only outside or in small groups these days.
Freedom comes at a price. Following the Civil War, which claimed more lives than any conflict in our nation’s young history, our leaders were faced with the need for the country’s first national cemeteries. Within a few years, Americans in towns and cities began setting aside a day in late spring to pay tribute to the fallen, decorating their graves with flowers and praying for the dead.
As wars continued, so did the number of cemeteries. Decoration Day gave way to Memorial Day, which was established officially as a federal holiday in 1968 and first celebrated across the country in 1971.
So even if you do not have a chance to visit a cemetery and lay flowers at a grave, you and I can pause this day and give thanks for the brave women and men who offered, as President Lincoln called it, “the last full measure of devotion.”
We can be people of peace. We can speak kindly to a stranger, thank a veteran, fly the flag at our homes. We can pray in public, tell our children the stories of friends and family that served. We can enjoy the freedoms earned by another’s sacrifice.
And we can pray…
While the storm clouds gather far across the sea
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.
God bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above
From the mountains, to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America
My home, sweet home
God bless America
My home, sweet home
May we all pause to remember those who had sacrificed so much that we may live in peace.