Sunday musings…Memorial Day 5/26/2024
I) Water. You just can’t go wrong with a day that stars on or in the water.
Says here that includes one of those little plastic baby “pools”.
2) Bloviate. My brother-in-law, the cardiology idiot savant, was flabbergasted that one of the nurses in the EP lab had never hear the word “bloviate”. You’ve all heard it here, of course, since that’s pretty much what I do each time I sit down to muse. Anyway, Pete defined it as “kinda like when a guy is talking just to hear himself speak.” To which the nurse replied “oh, like mansplaining”.
Pete: “Hm, not really. Mansplaining is more about the listener and how a mansplainer makes her feel. This is more like verbal ‘mansturbation.'”
I really like visiting Peter.
3) Memorial Day. I’m out of town with only a tiny window to sit down and muse. I came across this piece from 10 or 11 years ago, and with only a tiny bit of editing and updating it’s really appropriate for the three couples who have gathered in Vermont to share some time together. We’ve lost two of 4 Dads, and the two who remain are sadly not long for this world. We’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about them all. I always think about my Dad on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. Think about him and the stories he never told.
“It’s the stories. The stories matter. Whether they died in the heat of battle or in the cold of infirmity, the warriors all have stories. The stories are all important.
It’s remarkable how difficult it is to get at those stories, though. The ones that were the most formative, the ones that turned that one soldier or that one sailor into who s/he became, they tend to be slow in coming, if they come at all. Yet those are the ones that matter most.
The warriors among us tend toward silence. It’s not so much a secret thing (although there is a small group who simply mustn’t tell their stories) I don’t think, as it is a continuation of the protector role our airmen, sailors, soldiers and marines assume. They don’t so much keep the stories secret as they shield us from the effects of the stories, so powerful were those effects on them when they happened. Yet again, to understand those who remain, and to try to know those who have departed, the stories matter.
I drive by a cemetery filled with the graves of those who fought, some who died while fighting, and I try to conjure their stories. It’s pure folly. Dead men tell no tales, eh? Humanity learns of conflict and war from the stories told about both, and humans learn about each other the same way. Asking to hear the stories is an act of respect. Listening to the stories can be an act of love. Telling the stories is a little of both.
The stories of the men and women who have fought our wars are important.
A friend from my youth, a coach not too very much older than I once broke down and cried over his story. A very junior officer, his story of leadership and loss comes to me every year on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. I know him so much better, understand who he is so much better because I heard his story. So, too, is my knowledge of the men and women younger than I who have served and fought and graced me with their stories.
Life is long unless you are unlucky, but even the lucky run out of time. We have no Civil War survivors, no one from WWI to tell their stories. Those few from WWII still here are reticent, and time grows short. Even Korea fades ever quickly to time’s passage. As I write Dad is marooned by his illness somewhere between 1947 and 1974; much of his “time” seems to be spent in Korea at the moment. The smallest of consolations for us, his progeny, is that we may learn his story.
This Memorial Day let us all remember not only those who served and those who died in that service, but let us all remember their stories as well. Let us ponder the lessons those stories teach about not only humanity but also about the warrior, the person we remember. Let us encourage those who still walk among us, especially those whose journeys have been long and must be soon ending, to tell us their stories, all of them, even the ones they wish to protect us from, while they still can. Let us listen to those who know the stories behind each headstone as we gather in their honor. We have much to learn from the stories, about war and conflict, about the people who fought, about ourselves.
The stories matter. Still.”
Grace and peace to the families of those who fought. May their stories continue to guide us. May their memory be ever a blessing.
I’ll see you next week…
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