Another Mattress Sale

Another Memorial Day has passed – or has it? Congress established Decoration Day as May 30 after the Civil War (or War Between the States, or The War of Northern Aggression, or . . .). In 1967 (an arcane fact) the name was officially changed to Memorial Day, and then a year later, it became the last Monday in May, apparently so we could have yet another three day weekend and a mattress sale.

Another Memorial Day has passed, but it didn’t feel like Memorial Day – or Decoration Day. My grandmother, who died in 1960, raised peonies and sold them every Decoration Day. Our peonies have yet to bloom, and with this spring’s weather probably won’t for the true, original Memorial Day, May 30.

This Memorial Day I did not travel to the National Cemetery at Chattanooga, TN, to decorate my father’s grave. (My mother’s ashes float somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico near Venice, FL, a no doubt illegal scattering.) I did not travel to Uniontown, PA, to decorate my paternal grandmother’s or my Great Aunt Lyda’s graves. I didn't go to Indiana to decorate my paternal grandfather's grave.

I didn’t go to Ohio to decorate my maternal grandparents’ graves.

And I once again failed to travel to Kane, IL, five hours south of my Chicago suburb, to lay flowers on my son’s grave where his ashes lie on top of my father-in-law’s remains.

Perhaps I should feel guilty. I don’t. Guilt is a wasted emotion for the most part, it seems to me, used by people to manipulate others. I had too many people in my life as I was growing up who used guilt to control me and I have pretty much rejected it because it too frequently paralyzes.

I don’t believe that Daniel lies in my father-in-law’s grave. He, rather, is in my heart, as are my father – and all those other relatives. Pieces of bone chips, which funeral professionals call cremains, are not Daniel. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss him. I do. Every day of my life.

I remember and honor him by planting deep purple salvia close to the statue of St. Francis in our back yard. They were the flowers he always liked best and asked his grandmother to plant. I pray for him every night. And we take the occasional bouquet to church and put it in the Mary Corner, next to the statue of Mary. We light a candle.

Yesterday we did not decorate anyone's graves with peonies – or any other flowers.
We did not do that most patriotic of deeds: buy a new mattress. I don’t understand why national holidays create so much mattress advertising, so many mattress sales. (Is it that Americans figure out their mattresses are terrible when they finally have time to have sex on a holiday?)

Instead we planted a couple of eggplants and a tomato. We pulled a few weeds. We walked the dogs around the block.

And then we did that second most American of things: we went to the neighbors’ for a cookout.

We honored the past by celebrating the living.

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