Reflections On the Day

Lisa Thomas • May 23, 2018

My Grandmother Rogers (aka Wa-Wa, which is what you get when trying to teach a two year old to say Grandmother Rogers) was born in December of 1899, a fact that made remembering her age incredibly easy. At each birthday she turned whatever the year was about to be. Needless to say (but which I’m going to say anyway), her life experiences growing up were far different from mine and far, far different from those of my children.

To her entertainment revolved around family, as did holidays and other special occasions. And family didn’t just include the living—the dead were equally important and often a part of the celebration . . . which is why celebrations often took place in cemeteries.

Believe it or not, there was a time when cemeteries were the only available “parks”, especially in rural areas, and my grandmother most assuredly grew up in a rural area of Hardin County. In her later years, when her mind had her convinced it was about 1920, she would tell of her father hitching up the mules to the wagon and everyone, dressed in their finest, traveling to Shiloh for the Memorial Day festivities. That’s the real Memorial Day, not the let’s-make-another-long-weekend Memorial Day. The services were reverent, recalling those buried on the grounds and throughout the country—and the world—that lost their lives as a consequence of war. There would be picnics at the park and pictures made each year to remember the living while memorializing the dead.

Those celebrations didn’t just center around Memorial Day or the hallowed grounds of Shiloh. Any cemetery could serve as a gathering place and often did on their particular Decoration Day or when celebrating the anniversary of a resident’s birth or death. Again, pictures were always made to commemorate the event and always against a backdrop of monuments rising from the earth.

Today, we’re not as apt to party on the graves of our loved ones, and most cemeteries frown on picnics within their boundaries, if for no other reason than the mess that’s left behind. But some Decoration Days still find families gathering around the graves of those who’ve gone on before, settling into their lawn chairs and visiting with others they may only see once a year. And on Monday Shiloh National Park will again host its annual Memorial Day service, complete with music and speakers and reflections on the lives that have been lost to the violence of war through the years. Every monument there will be graced with an American flag; after all, Memorial Day was the original Decoration Day, proclaimed to honor those who died in the Civil War. What better way to decorate the graves of our soldiers than with the flag of their country?

Most of us don’t have a problem remembering those we have loved and buried, but often we forget about those who gave their lives in service to our country, unless they were one of our own. Perhaps on this Memorial Day—this day meant for reflection on the somberness of war and the lives it claims—we can all take a few minutes to acknowledge their sacrifice and the ultimate price paid by their families—and to be grateful.