Memorial Day

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

George Eliot (1819-1880)

This quote was sent by Gloria, who as her name implies is glorious. That we both live with bipolar disorder ensures that we have a companion along the journey who understands, even if we don't see each other as often as we may like. That's the way of it. We are aging with this disease and the cumulative effects are daunting. A lot of time is spent alone, yet aren't we all alone with ourselves at the end of the day? 

If you don't know where to look, your eyes may barely be able to make out the path that winds it way down the grassy field. So secluded is this spot that one may feel as if one is walking back in time. I've taken a few down this lovely path leading to one of the remote cemeteries scattered about. The trail leads through a thicket but the ruts from wagons have worn deep into the ground. Here the path is wide. There is no losing ones way here. There, just as you make a turn, is the bolder marked entrance to the cemetary.

These excursions are motivated by Spirit. Not everyone can appreciate the solitude and greenery that encompasses this potters graveyard. Here, beginning with the number 1, are the once nameless ones who lived here when it was an asylum. A wonderful movement by former patients and residents worked feverishly to put names with the numbers. Numbers. That was how they were buried. No names until this group working with the town and the state's department of mental health were able to piece together a name with a number. Thank God, Massachusetts keeps good records. Even so, there are many markers without corresponding names. A simple round pipe-like head with a chisled number marks the spot where someones remains have now fertilized the land.

The expanse is wide and a deep green surrounded by tall evergreens and large maples that have taken root. Off to one side are the abandoned, unused flat slates used to create markers with names. The layout of the plots are nice and orderly in perfect rows, going on and on, down a slope until it meets a boundary fence set among the trees. Substitute the iron markers for white headstones and you could be on a knoll of unknown soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. This graveyard holds hundreds. However, what one sees is a lovely south facing hillside amid an empty grove. If you like mysteries and cemeteries then this one has a lot going for it.

I love both. I've always found cemeteries peaceful places with surprises. I dragged one brother all through Arlington National Cemetery one beautiful day discovering an amphitheater with a throne on a dais. The photos of us on a marble throne make us look like an emperor and an empress. Arlington is a very large cemetery, also nice and orderly, like the military. The property once belonged to the defeated yet mighty warrior General Lee. It's present day use does him honor to this day. There has been a lot of blood spilled in the name of America. Maybe not as much as by the French and the English but they've had centuries more than us to get it right. Now we are the super power in decline definitely headed like lemmings off the cliff.

Memorial Day is coming upon us. It was a time chosen after the American Civil War to remember the deeds and sacrifices of soldiers and sailors. There were no marines or air force then. The movement for a national day of mourning was spearheaded by women but that should not surprise you. It is women, the women and children, left behind that had sacrifice thrust upon them. This is the way of war. Women giving birth to sons (now daughters) to be fodder for an insatiable, unrelenting need for war, blood-shed, and the ever growing sophistication of war making technology. Want to become educated for almost nothing and be employed, see the world? Join the military. Talk about line items and hidden costs in the national budget and debt but I digress.

Memorial Day is not celebrated on May 31st any longer. It is now in the US post-industrial, capitalist, secular world, the unofficial start to summer and a long weekend. That this year, the last Monday in May happens to fall on the 31st is a fluke. It's the weekend we chose to remember all of our dearly departed, whether they were military personnel or not. This is the way it should be. Not all honor and glory belong to those who lost their life in war. Their lives do not merit any special status that sets them apart from the nameless buried on the property of a former insane asylum or your own beloved ones laid to rest in cemeteries or the oceans of around our nation.

There is always a reverent silence in cemeteries. I love the sound of silence broken only by the call of the birds who find shelter and rest in the trees. Silence isn't very popular in our hectic, iPod world so we speak in hushed tones. Not so much as a fear of the dead and the shadow side of life but more to reflect and contemplate our own lives and motives. Here we are reminded life is a brief journey. Briefer for some than for others.

But eternal life, the life promised to those who are surrendered to the Divine Will, is an adventure beyond our wildest imagination. Or so I'm told and been promised. Who doesn't like a good adventure?

Tell someone you love them today. Mean it. Then see or hear or feel what happens next. Believe.