This is a repeat from 2009.
To me, Memorial Day is May 30th, not the last Monday of the
month that we celebrate now, even though for the majority of my life, the Monday
holiday has been the norm.
Growing up in my house, May 30th had a special significance
because, in addition to a day to honor our war heroes, it is also my sister’s
birthday and, with a timing that our father convinced us occurred in honor of
that momentous occasion, the Memorial Day parade marched right by our house.
As kids, we would jump off the front steps; practice our
cartwheels and somersaults; and then run to the street when the pounding of
drums announced the parade’s imminent arrival. It wasn’t much in the way of
display, a band or two, the measured pace of flag-holding veterans, baton
twirlers and uniformed scout troops, a group of bike riding kids and flowing
streamers riding beside. However understated though, at age five or age ten,
the event was as big as the world to us. That parade and its route by our house
ceased somewhere around the time the Memorial Day date changed; the only thing
left is a tale we tell as a part of family lore, of the birthday girl covered
in poison ivy the day one of those parades marched by.
I thought of this all yesterday when my husband and I
wandered downtown to cheer our daughter as she marched with the high school
band during our town Memorial Day celebration. The common was decorated with
families dressed in shorts and red and blue, luxuriating in one of the few warm
days we’ve had this spring. Kids biked around the pond at the middle; over by
the Unitarian Church, the Daughters of the American Revolution stood in the
flowing dresses of their period garb. In front of the white painted colonial housing
the Senior Center, volunteers did a brisk business in hot dogs and popcorn, and
everywhere it seemed, American flags rippled in the sea breeze. We found my
husband’s mother and dad, his sister and her two sons sitting under the
umbrella of a shady maple. The boys, ages four and two, munched on steamed hot
dogs and reached hands into paper bags of popcorn. Jiggling in anticipation of
the parade, they jumped up to dash about the yard in giggling bursts of excess
energy.
I waited in a different kind of anticipation--a blossom of
gratitude expanding in my chest for those who serve, for the respect our town
displays, and for my daughter who has played the flute since the fourth grade
and would demonstrate her own patriotism this day. When the sound of music
drifted to us, we ran to the street, the boys waving their tiny American flags.
Aging veterans and civic leaders drove by in shiny convertibles, younger
veterans marched behind. “The Rusty Skippers,” the town band consisting of
local volunteers reprising their high school playing skills marched by, and we
whooped and hollered as our daughter and her classmates followed.
As a
contingent of retired marine musicians marched behind the predictable scout
troops and bicycles, I looked at our little nephews, tired now, but holding
their flags and still waving. For a moment I was once again their height, delighted by the bands, clapping at the soldiers, and regardless of the date,
experiencing that first dawning loyalty to our country in a way that lives
forever.
In honor of NJS.
