Memorial Day, An Intersection of Emotions...

   I have always liked the word "juxtaposition", or maybe I just enjoyed the sound of it. It sounded like a word that an intellectual would use. Not that I am one, of course, just pretending to be one.

   When it comes to the celebration of the American Memorial Day, I see it as, in many cases, the intersection of Pride and Sadness. These two emotions meet at the headstone of the fallen warrior.

   Yesterday I thought back over the times I have visited places where monuments or tombstones provided this backdrop.

   There are large, manicured spaces where the headstones are aligned and uniform:

   Such as the National Cemetery in Chattanooga

   Or the one we found on a trip accidentally one day in Indiantown Gap, PA

   Or the one that is a part of the Andersonville, GA Civil War site

   Or in Union Springs, AL

   There are also cemeteries that are distinctly personal and maybe not so "pretty":

   Sometimes these men and women lie in small cemeteries like the one down in Camden County at the site of the abandoned Oak Grove Baptist Church.

   One of the graves there at Oak Grove

   A marker at a cemetery outside Folkston, GA, non-readable but with a flag

   Or one at Ludowici, GA up in Long County

   Or one at Schlatterville, GA, over in Brantley County, near Hoboken

   Sometimes a number of names were together as those who died in a war, like these monuments in Litchfield, CT.

   I confess that I have never heard a shot fired in anger. My only military service was in the Army Reserve from 1955 through 1962. I never served on active duty in time of war.

   I have no parents or grandparents who have served in time of war, or children or grandchildren either, so I can't feel the personal pride or sadness as I stand in any of these places. National pride, of course, but it cannot be the same.

   I have seen men standing or kneeling at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC with hands tracing a name, or mothers with small children at a headstone in a National Cemetery, but I can't know that feeling personally. Even now as I write, I feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I can't know the heartache of loss they experience.

   They stand with juxtaposition of feelings, while I stand at the intersection of those emotions and silently give thanks

   I am grateful for all the sacrifices made throughout our history, by men and women, by  their families and loved ones, and I try to touch the hem of their garments to experience how they feel. My hat is off to them, and my thanksgiving as well.

   And I try not to forget...