My father once said that, for him, Memorial Day is a sad day.
He wasn’t speaking just to me. He, and several other veterans, were addressing a group following the screening of a documentary. He told the group that, for him, Memorial Day is sad, because it’s a day he remembers friends and classmates and acquaintances who didn’t make it, who died in war or in the internal war that awaited them when they returned home, the war with their own memories, their own minds, and sometimes with the drugs or alcohol that they thought could keep them out of those wars but just pulled them further in.
Veteran’s Day, he went on to say, is a happier day. That’s when he celebrates those who have have survived.
My dad is one of those who has survived. It hasn’t always been easy. We’ve had a tough relationship, at times. I’m grateful he made it home.
I remember the first time my dad took me to the Vietnam Memorial. We were in D.C. to protest against another war, because my dad, like many other people who have seen war, doesn’t think others should have to fight and die in more wars. It’s not the people who decide to go to war who fight and die in them. Seldom has been.
We were in D.C. to protest against another war, and he walked with me down to the Memorial, and we walked its dark, reflective lengths, and he paused at names he recognized, people who hadn’t made it back home.
His act of remembrance is now gifted to me, part of my memories.
To remember means more than "to think back on." It means to bring back into connection, into community, to call into the present the events, the relationships, and yes, the sacrifices, of the past. Remembrance requires of us an element of attention and mindfulness. We pause to remember because, in the rush of our lives, it is easy to forget.
In my Christian faith tradition, we have a weekly practice of remembrance, in which we gather at a table and recall into our present lives the grace and liberation offered to our faith ancestors in years long past. It's one of the most sacred acts of our faith, because how we remember matters for how we imagine ourselves as a community and how we act in the present moment.
I’ll call my dad, today. I always do, on this day. And he will tell me that he worries about how this day is used, that he worries it becomes about glorifying war rather than mourning it. And in our own way, we will remember — remember those who died in wars, those who have been victims of wars, those who have survived wars.
Because for my dad, Memorial Day is a sad day.
