Memorial Day is So Much More Than a Cookout

Growing up in Indiana, I was always excited about Memorial Day Weekend.  I didn’t exactly understand what the holiday was about, but I knew that it was finally warm enough for everyone to open their pools and there would be a family cookout where I could see my cousins and other relatives.  And of course, the big race, the Indianapolis 500, would be on TV.

As I grew older, my mother began taking me with her to Rice Cemetery on the Saturday before Memorial Day.  We would rake and clean the winter debris off the graves of family members and plant new flowers or leave an artificial arrangement.   While we worked, I would stop and look out across the very large cemetery and see people tidying the grave sites of their loved ones.  When we finished our tasks, my mother would stand back and say, “I sure do miss them.”

After I became an adult and more family members had passed on, our annual trek involved visits to two cemeteries in my hometown.  My grandmother, my mother’s mother, died in November of 2001.  On the following Memorial Day Weekend, my mother and I went to plant flowers on her grave.  When we got there, we found a big chunk of firewood right in front of her headstone.  (Wish I had a picture of it but that was back in 2002 before we carried cell phone cameras with us everywhere.) My mother fussed, “Now who would put that on someone’s grave” and she promptly threw it into the closest trash can.  Later, at the family cookout, she was complaining to my brother about finding that big piece of firewood on her mother’s grave.

My brother’s face broke into a big smile and said, “I put that there.”  My mother was speechless for a moment before she asked him why in the world, he would do that.  He said, “I always told grandma I would make sure she had firewood for her wood burning fireplace in the winter.  I put that firewood on her grave when the weather turned cold to keep my promise to her.”

While today, we remember all our loved ones who have died, Decoration Day was originally created to remember and honor those who died in military service to our country.  It was renamed “Memorial Day” and declared a federal holiday in 1967, but its origins and customs go all the way back to the American Civil War. 

The Civil War lasted for four years, from 1861 – 1865, and during this time over 600,000 men from both sides were killed in combat.  Women, in the north and in the south, began spontaneously decorating the graves of their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons to honor their ultimate sacrifice to our country and as a way of expressing their grief.

In 1868, General John A. Logan, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that “Decoration Day” would be observed every May 30th to commemorate all the soldiers who died in the Civil War.  That first Decoration Day, the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D. C. were decorated with flowers and wreaths.  In 1968, Congress changed Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday in May so that people might have a three-day holiday weekend. 

In the United States, flags are placed on the veterans’ graves every year, a few days before Memorial Day. This is done by armies of volunteers from the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, American Legion, and Veterans of Foreign Wars. Flags are typically placed one foot in front of the headstone and centered.

My parents are buried at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery because my dad is an Army veteran. A year ago, right before we moved from Texas to Indiana, I visited the cemetery. I was so pleased and proud to see all the flags decorating the graves of the veterans there, including my dad’s!

I feel like I’ve come full circle because I moved from Texas back to Indiana a year ago, and it’s almost Memorial Day Weekend. Since I don’t live in my hometown, I won’t be visiting the cemeteries this year. I will, however, put my flag out and remember the people I love who are gone, including my brother, Jeff, who was also an Army veteran and who died way too soon and only four years after he put that piece of firewood on our grandmother’s grave so she would stay warm in the winter.