It means more than going to the mall

Memorial Day can be a special occasion.  It is meant to be a day of remembering family members and close friends who have passed on.

It is a time when you can reflect on the good times enjoyed with those who have been closest to you.

When I return home to Palouse, which I plan to do in a few weeks, the first place I always go is to the cemetery where my parents and grandparents are buried. There are a number of others that were close to me buried there.

How fortunate we are that our society sets apart a special day to do this.

At my parents’ grave site, you can look across the river and see the home where I grew up.

Of course you can reflect on loved ones who have died at any time.

When I used to travel, I often visited graveyards regardless if family members or friends were buried there.

When in the past I traveled to the nation’s capital, I always went to the Vietnam Wall Memorial. I have a distant relative who was killed in Vietnam, and I look until I find his name engraved in the marble stone.

I also go to the Arlington National Cemetery and just walk among the stones reading the names.

Years ago, while visiting our daughter Kathleen, my wife and I walked some distance to a cemetery there to visit the grave of Edgar Allen Poe, a writer I appreciated in my literature study in college.

While traveling in the Far East, I visited the graveyard of those who died while building the railroad over the River Kwai.

Most were from British colonies, and of course unknown to me, but respect is respect wherever you display it.

So we just experienced another Memorial Day, filled with emptiness from those missing now.

It is a rewarding experience to troll back over one’s life to recall pleasant times had with family that is now gone.

I also have the same type of recall on Veteran’s Day.  Three brothers were active in World War II, and my father in World War I.

I guess we all have a lot to be thankful for.

And we all have our special way in which we express it. What did you do on Memorial Day?