Gratitude Monday: Remembrance

As on all Memorial Days, I’m grateful for the sacrifices of the men and women who have served this country in uniform over the centuries. Who—volunteer or conscript, professional or amateur—fought and died because the nation called upon them to do so.

Unlike grocery shoppers in Buffalo, school children in Uvalde or parade-goers in Highland Park (what a great year 2022 was, eh?), they stepped knowingly into danger, but it doesn’t make their sacrifice any less painful for their loved ones. It also does not lessen our collective loss from the cutting short of their lives. It seems fitting that we spend at least one day a year honoring them.

There will be hundreds of people out at Arlington National Cemetery today, including many visiting Section 60, where the most recent arrivals are laid to rest. Families and friends will set up lawn chairs by graves, share a year’s worth of news and gossip, maybe drink a toast. It’s like El Día de Muertos, only in a lot of languages.

Although I did not know any of them, I join their families in remembering—and thanking—them.

 

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