One theory as to the origin of Memorial Day.. A historic race track in Charleston, South Carolina was a former Confederate prison camp - as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who had died while held captive. In 1865, recently liberated slaves reinterred the dead Union soldiers from the mass grave to individual grace - fenced it and built an entry arch, picked/placed flowers, and declared it a Union graveyard.. A daring thing to do in the South shortly after the North’s victory. Pretty cool.
Decoration Day, as it was originally called - gave way for our country to honor those who had perished while in military service for our country.
We expanded this as a designated time to visit our own loved ones/special people.. And further, as a “just take a break from regularness” with picnics, barbeques, family gatherings - and an extra day off.
I offer apologies to my mother, father and sister that I didn’t attend their gravesites this weekend - but believe me, they’re always in attendance of my brain. Notta day goes by I don’t think of/miss each.
My mother was an honest, law-abiding, moral - fun person. She had a gift for writing things that made readers glue themselves to. Mebbe had her day been the day of the computer - she’d be allover Barnes and Noble’s website.
My father. Thanks to two xanax handed me by my ex about two hours before his funeral service, I got to give his eulogy. The very bottom line about my father - when his name is conjured up, people smile. He was light, fun, funny, inventive, came from leftfield, and never terse. If only we all could live life so “up” to the point when we expire - the realization of “he/she created many a smile” would happen.
My sister. She was the most wonderful blend of the above. She took the written humor from her/my mother - and translated it verbally throughout life. She took the “always up” from my father - had an everpresent smile - and she always had an umbrella for life’s parade. She packed more into 51 years than I will in a lifetime. She was a giver, our extended family’s cog, and she brightened up any room she walked into.
Sorry that this got personal. Wasn’t my intent as I started. My intent was, every day is a memorial day. We carry cemeteries in our brains. Think back, in addition to lost loved ones - there are so many who’ve departed our lives and we recall them often, and with fondness. Their faces, stories, actions, are etched in the granite of our memory. As we remember, we smile, as if to place a flower on their grave.
I am human hear me roar. We are all human. We err. We make others upset, even perhaps if not with intent. We don’t always make all the right moves. But if we try, if we give, if we smile, if we live each day with the understanding “life’s a pretty good place” - perhaps when our turn for the circulation to end… we too will invoke smiles to those continuing on.
(Again, I write for me… to me… hitchhikers welcome) Decorate other’s faces. Pump up their self image. Do something, even if only as piddly as making a monkey-face to draw their smile. GD I’ve earned these crevices betweengst my cheeks and my lips/nose - thanks in large part to the wonderful human beings I’ve encountered along the way. When I look in the mirror - oh sure - I’d love to snap my fingers and have that 1960’s baby face allover again… but the lines don’t bother me. It’s how life has Decorated me with smiles aplenty.
It’s ironic we lost Dick Martin (TV’s Laugh In) yesterday at age 86. No, life shouldn’t always be about laughter, but GD it helps. It’s ok if it’s always about smiles isn’t it?
Why can’t life be a Laugh In? Sock it to me bebbe. Love, Victurd.
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