Tag: rememberance

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In Living Memory

OK, quiz time. Which of the following comes next when you hear “Remember, remember…”?

A) “… to turn your clocks back one hour to end Daylight Saving Time.”

B) “…what you came into the room to get five minutes ago.”

C) “…a time in September, when life was slow, and oh, so mellow.”

D) “… the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot.”

If you answered D, there are decent odds that you either have English relatives, or you’re a fan of  the movie or comic “V For Vendetta” … or that you know how a columnist’s mind works on questions like this. (We’re a little predictable.)  The chant, of course, is a traditional one for Guy Fawkes Day in England on Nov. 5, and a catchy one at that. Some of you may have even finished the next words: “I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.”

Now comes the harder part. Why? Why remember?

Those who remember anything at all might recall that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament. But the details of why, or who he was, or what century it happened in, or that the observance was once an occasion for virulent anti-Catholic fervor … that tends to be fuzzier for most people. Most of the time, what gets remembered is the admonition to “remember, remember” and not much else.

Which brings me to Veterans Day.

Each year on Nov. 11, we get our own call to remember.  – specifically, to remember and thank the veterans of our armed services, especially those who have served during wartime. Cities offer parades. Restaurants offer meals. We hear their stories, shake their hands, maybe put out the flag for the day or the weekend.

But how often do we think about why? Do we think about why?

Or are we just remembering to remember?

I wonder. I really do.

It began as a remembrance of horror and a pledge of peace – the Armistice Day, when the relentless and pointless four-year slaughter of World War I finally came to an end.

In this country, it continued because of a Kansas man named Alvin King, a man who repaired shoes and felt that the sacrifices of the still-recent World War II veterans and those who came after them should be honored as well.

Two ideas. Two kinds of memory.

One, the memory of things past. Of a portion of life given at the country’s call. A recognition that some were willing to risk pain and fear and death and despair in order to serve a land they loved. Some came back to thanks and parades. Some returned quietly, as though knocking off work at the end of the day. Some, instead of welcome, drew recriminations.

It’s a story that most of us cannot truly know or share. One unique to those who have served. And so we remember.

But we also need a second memory. A memory that looks forward. A memory that remembers that the struggles are not always in the past, that our veterans are not just a story to be told and a hand to be shaken once a year. That we have an obligation to meet their needs, to heal their wounds, to help them as they once helped us.

And most of all, we need to remember the price. And the ancient commitment to our veterans, so often broken, to create no more of their number. To seek peace in a world of war.

It is an imposing memory. A demanding one, even. But essential.

Remember, remember.

And then make the memory real.

I know of no reason why this veterans’ season should ever be forgot.

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In Just a Moment

“I don’t care what you’re working on, get home now,” Heather said on the phone. Then came the words that shattered everything.

Melanie was gone.

Melanie was my wife’s 21-year-old cousin, kind and sassy, stubborn and compassionate, a night owl full of conversation on any topic or none at all. For the last 14 months, she had been staying with us as she put her life back together from a number of challenges and became a full and vivacious member of the household. She swapped stories, played games, helped around the house, even began to crochet a blanket in Hogwarts colors for Missy, our disabled ward.

All that ended on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018.

We thought Mel was sleeping late. She often did.

She was still in bed. But this time she wasn’t waking up.

 

There are moments that the words don’t reach,

There is suffering too terrible to name …

— “It’s Quiet Uptown” from Hamilton

There are a lot of questions that chase through your head when someone dies so young. “Why? How?” are the obvious ones and sometimes the easiest – those are the ones that at least have a chance of being answered with patient work. (Eventually, that is; we’re still learning those answers ourselves.)

But the most pernicious ones, the most painful and useless questions of all, are the ones that begin “What if?” You know the litany, I’m sure:

“What if we’d taken her to the hospital when she came home feeling sick?”

“What if I’d checked on her sooner?”

“What if I’d said something different … done something different … been more concerned about this … paid more attention to that … ?”

It’s self-torture, running in place on a treadmill made of knives. You get nowhere except to hurt yourself worse than before. But we all keep getting on.

If we’re not careful, we can drown out the question that really matters. “What next?”

It’s a question that Mel was an expert at.

 

Every day, you fight like you’re running out of time …

— “Non-Stop,” from Hamilton

Melanie seemed to fill every moment she had. Sometimes drawing or writing. Sometimes making a friendship bracelet or a brightly-colored rice bag for someone she cared about. Sometimes chatting in the kitchen or over Skype until well past midnight.

None of it was easy. Mel had severe Crohn’s disease and the autoimmune complications that often come from that. Mel had many other struggles and the repercussions that often come from those. But she faced it all with a quirky sense of humor and a heart that could never be anything but genuine.

This is the woman who kept photos of her latest colonoscopy in her wallet, where baby pictures would normally go.

This is the little girl who, when told by her granddad to stop opening and closing the back door as she and her friends raced in and out, simply left it open. “Well, you said …”

This is the friend who had plans to work in a veterinary clinic, and was genuinely excited to receive an animal anatomy coloring book for Christmas.

This is the relative who would trade silly Snapchat photos with her mom and little brother, seeing who could turn each other into the most ridiculous image.

All of which means this is the friend whose absence leaves a hole. A silence. A gap in the story that aches to be filled.

And, perhaps, a reminder.

 

And when my time is up, have I done enough?

Will they tell my story?

— “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?” from Hamilton

All of us work to a limited clock. None of us are promised tomorrow. Most of the time, we’re good about not thinking about that.

But when a loved one leaves too soon, it hits you right in the face.

You look at the choices that you made and that you didn’t make. The things you’ve tried and the things you were too scared to do. A different sort of “what if,” perhaps, but one that looks forward instead of backward.

“What have I not done that I should have done? That I still could do?”

I use the word “choice” and it starts that way. But the funny thing is, the mind and the soul have a muscle memory, too. The more you choose an action, the more reflexive it becomes. That can be the start of a lot of bad habits – but it’s also where things like bravery, diligence, kindness and generosity come from. You do the right thing often enough, and eventually it leaves conscious thought. It just becomes what you do.

When time is short, those reflexes matter. And time is always short. Train them. Sharpen them. Reach out. Welcome in.

Melanie did.

And in her absence, I hope we all can, too.

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The Second Thought

On the night before Sept. 11, I wondered what to write.

In retrospect, that was an unusual feeling.

Most years, the choice would have been automatic. My first ever 9/11 column, “The Last to Know,” ran the day after the attacks in New York, scribbled on the back of a napkin while the news was fresh in my mind. I’ve written many since – maybe not every year, but often enough.

But this year, thirteen years since the attacks, the subject didn’t leap to mind. Not until I saw a friend’s memorial Facebook posting.

I wonder very much if I’m alone in that.

September 11 will never be an ordinary day again. Not entirely. And yet, even the most infamous of dates, with time, become something remembered more than felt, dates that steadily pass into the history books instead of the front pages. Today’s sixth-graders have no memory of the Sept. 11 attacks at all. Soon, tomorrow’s high-schoolers won’t, either.

I wonder if this is how survivors of Pearl Harbor felt in 1954. An event near enough that there was still living, vivid memory, but far enough that other events could overtake it, push it into the background, claim the spotlight.

I’m sure no one had forgotten Pearl Harbor. But I wonder how many first remembered it as a date the water bill was due.

There’s a melancholy with that. But also, in an odd way, a freedom.

Those who perished and those they touched should never be forgotten. And I doubt they ever will be. No one’s passing is ever truly “gotten over” or should be, all the less so when the passing is the violent end of a few thousand people.

But it’s OK for the pain to dull, too.

It’s OK to not feel every anniversary as though it were the first one.

It’s OK to be able to look at those memories from a distance and maybe, in a way, see them for the first time with clear eyes.

A lot of powerful things happened in the wake of Sept. 11. Some are moments we’re still proud of. Some are choices that we’re still dealing with the consequences of. All of them, at the time, were tinged with a color of urgency and uncertainty, with the feeling of desperate need.

Now, perhaps, with the colors dialed down a little, we can weigh carefully the things we’ve done and learn from them.

I know, there’s never a time when we’re completely free from crisis. Today, no airplanes are flying into New York skyscrapers. Instead, our headlines are captured by atrocities and beheadings and the prospect of another war in a faraway place. Maybe it’s never possible to have a moment for completely calm, clear judgment.

But maybe, as old horrors grow farther away, it’s possible to be just clear enough to meet the next crisis.

I hope so. Dear heaven, I hope so.

Every year, we say “Remember.” But what is the purpose of memory? Partly, to hold close that which might otherwise be lost. Partly, to honor those whose deeds are worthy to endure. Partly, to learn from what has happened so that the best can be achieved and the worst avoided.

If the fear and pain that once touched those memories so strongly begins to fade – and I recognize that for some, it may never do so – does that mean the memories themselves have been lost? By no means. The closeness, the honor, the lessons can still survive.

Not because they’ve been emblazoned in burning letters that sear the mind and banish sleep. But because we now choose to do so.

And what we take from that choice should be what we pass to the next generation.

Let the fear go to rest at last. Let the best survive. And let life continue.

Because ordinary life is worth remembering, too.