Dad's Poem

Memorial Day

The fragrance of cut flowers is strong and sweet
and as annual visitors walk slowly and putter meaninglessly,
the freshly cleared marble and granite monuments shine.
The lawn is mowed, all trash and eyesores are removed,
and even the sun shines with warmth and brilliance on
this day we remember. . .  what we normally try to forget.

Flags fly at half mast as a tribute.  Are they who are
gone more or less fortunate than those of us who remain?
Are we really expected to understand?

From dust we came, and many have returned.  Perhaps that
is why it seems so little, to beautify the dust, to come a
little closer to them,  to die a little more ourselves.
Perhaps the goal is to feel close enough to those parted
that we no longer fear death.  Maybe the reaction to not care
when that time comes is to be suppressed. 

Memorial day is not a beautiful day--warm temperatures,
Clear blue skies, and scratching in the earth cannot make it so.
Remembering opens wounds not yet healed and reinstates the
emptiness.

If,  after all, the purpose is to remember;
For those somewhere who could forget, then let it be,
But for those who live a shadow of a past time already,
Memorial day is a cruelty seldom equaled.

"Remember the good" is often said, and to do so reminds
one of what has been and is no more.  Remembering the bad only
causes wishes for another chance, not possible,
and remorse for mistakes.

Remembering is for those with little to remember and
those who will yet have remembering to do.
Those of us in neither category
would rather go to work as usual.

--Jack,  my dad written in 1974, the memorial day after he lost his 15 year old son.  Not bad.  Says it pretty well.

Nobody should have to pick out flowers and wonder if they are right for a teenage boy.  Teenage boys shouldn't need flowers.

We got pretty ones anyway.