…………………….I was looking at photos, posted by people I don’t even know, on my face book page, and was stopped dead in my tracts when these pictures came up. As I looked at each picture I became more and more upset until tears were streaming down my cheeks………The grief these people are feeling is so palpable it’s heart breaking. If anyone has had a great loss in their lives they can understand what these people are going through…….My question every year is always the same………WHY?………….Why wars…….Why do men need to have war…….Why such hatred….Why is the news about everything always terrible……Why can’t we do anything about gun violence?…..Why so many needless deaths…..Why did the world have to go through this horrific plague where millions of people had to die within a year!…..Why are there so many gangs who just kill each other. Don’t they realize there are no winners….only losers…….Why do some police have to shoot someone seven or eight times as the victim is running away………WHY do we say “Happy Memorial Day”? when there is nothing happy about it………………”Remembering” has a different meaning for these people in the photos above………….We remember to keep our loved ones alive…in our hearts….The one WHY I do know the answer to is why these men and women in the armed services gave their lives…..They fought and died to keep us FREE……………….God bless them all.
Thank you for this post, Louis. I was wondering yesterday too why people said happy Memorial Day? I also wonder why the richest country in the world doesn’t properly take care of its veterans. I am so grateful to all those who gave their lives and to those who were injured. Love and hugs to you.
Dear Karen….one reason the Veterans aren’t taken care of is because the senators and congressmen are too busy taking take of themselves and giving themselves raises unchecked. I guarantee if they had to get their own health insurance instead of them and their families being taken care of by the government things would change big time.
This poem ‘Epitaph’ written by Merritt Malloy was read on an NCIS episode.
It’s very powerful & uplifting.
————————
When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.
I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.
Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on in your eyes
And not your mind.
You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.
Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.
Lest we forget.
Thank you for your thoughts and these tragic images.
The last stanza of For the Fallen by the WWI poet Laurence Binyan:
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Dear CGee, thank you so much for bringing this poem to my attention. I guess there is no one meaning to a poem….it’s how each individual interprets it. There were many summer nights when Jac and I would sit out by the water and star gaze. Inevitably we would talk about all of the people thought the ages who looked at the same sky, at the same stars who were no longer here to look at them. I often think of those conversations when I look at the evening sky. This poem reminds me of that. No one is here for ever, but the stars continue to burn brightly for the next star gazers.
Louis, What a beautiful story and meaning for the poem. I first encountered this poem when the fourth stanza was used in a memorial service for departed classmates at a 20th college reunion (none of whom had died in wars):
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Bernadette, I agree with you 100 percent! Each one of these pictures shows the love and devotion that was and is given in sacrifice for their country and their fellow citizens! We all need to wake up to that fact and commit to loving our neighbors in the best way we can to honor those who gave their lives for that right. It is that simple and yet that difficult! Thank you, Louis, for this touching and powerful display of what Memorial Day really is about! It gives us all much to think about!
Hi Louis,
I’m right there with you. Yesterday in church they played taps and I poured tears. I come from a long line of Navy men, grandfather, father, ex husbands. My grandfather was on a ship that was torpedoed. When it happened he happened to be standing next to a priest. The priests head was, well let’s say the priest died. My grandfather was in bad shape and anointed 3x for death. I thank Father God for giving me back my grandfather. My heart goes out to those who did not make it home. I love my country dearly. Their sacrifice is never in vain in my eyes. I pray that one day this world will see peace and that we all love one another. Truly, if all felt the love we needed there would be no wars.
God Bless and lots of hugs,
Bernadette
Thank you for sharing this heartfelt post, and God Bless You Louis.
didn’t mean to be anonymous.
A day of memory and gratefulness to all. Thank you, Louis, for your moving post.
I wish I had the answer to these age-old questions, Louis. I abhor violence and any needless suffering. I abhor any and all mindless and hurtful discrimination. These gross inequities started plaguing me when I was in college, especially as all
I had ever known was one form of privilege or another. Two of my sorority sisters a couple of years ahead of me joined the Peace Corps, and I began to take a serious look at doing the same. By the time graduation time approached for me, I had decided to do the same. I wanted to make a firm commitment to working toward bettering the lives of others and helping to create peace. That decision was life-changing for me.
But I -and many other Peace Corps Volunteers- felt after our two years of service that the experience had given us far more than what we left behind. Most of us realized that only after being back stateside for a while. Of course we all wondered what long-term benefit the work we had done had had on our communities. We also brought back with us the commitment to serve in our US communities in any way we could.
I returned to my Peace Corps site of Cienaga, Magdalena Department of Colombia after some 40 years of having left it. Before we traveled up the Caribbean coast to Cienaga, we first landed in Cartagena, an ancient walled city I had always loved. It is now a hot spot for tourism as a world heritage site , especially for Europeans, which had not been the case at all back in the day. Had we made a difference? I soon found out when at a shop in the very expensive Old City that sold hand-woven goods. When I told the owner that I had been there 40 years earlier, he immediately said “Cuerpo de Paz!” They can always spot us LOL! He told me that his town of San Jacinto was now prospering due to a Peace Corps Volunteer organizing a weaving co-op and successfully finding markets for their goods.
Then on to Cienaga. I went back to my old barrio and couldn’t believe my eyes!!! I probably cried for a week! Never in a million years would I have imagined the changes that had come about there, which had been one of the poorest barrios on the Caribbean Coast. From the large CARE cafeteria we built where 200 very poorly nourished children had two nutritious meal a day, many of these same children got scholarships for higher education, some with university degrees. The children of then a young boy of 12 became an MD and a lawyer! Rather then saying “Thank God I am now out of the hood”, then went back, tore down the shacks that had lived in, and built nice houses for their mothers. And then decided that they wanted to bring their own children up there because of the strong sense of community.
From those experiences as well as many others strictly as a volunteer back in the US, I learned that the one thing I did have control of was how I responded to community needs. I learned how to organize like-minded people to bring about the changes we wanted to see. There are more like us than we realize!!! It is still hard work, but can be done and starting on the grass roots level. Now in my Golden Years I have many more limitations than I once had, but am very proud to see that many in the next generation have picked up the torch and are carrying on. When I see my son and the paths he has chosen to take, I always remember the Crosby, Stills & Nash song “Teach Your Children Well.” We taught him well, as I am sure he will his young son! It starts with us but doesn’t end there. Have a listen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vnYKRacKQc
Why, indeed, Louis. It’s hard to imagine the pain of losing a child, a spouse, a parent to war. Thank you for your post.