There are really two holidays today -- the one marked by flags and wreaths
and ceremony, and the one that takes place in people's hearts. And it's in
hearts that Memorial Day endures.

Memorial Day is the most personal of public holidays. It has
transformed into that over the years. Somewhere along the way, between the
time it was officially recognized as a day to honor the nation's war dead and
the time it became an obscenely commercialized and busy holiday weekend,
Memorial Day became a time to honor the memory of all who passed before us,
civilian and military, and who gave our lives meaning. It was an important day
not only for families who suffered losses in American wars, but for all
families. My first memories of this holiday go back to a small New England
town and two striking images -- men in uniform weeping at the sound of taps,
and men and women in "Sunday clothes" decorating graves of our immigrant
ancestors.
    In searching for reflections on this holiday, I recalled a poem by another
New Englander, Walter Hard of Vermont, and asked a friend to fetch it off his
bookshelf. 
    It is titled, "On Memorial Day," and I was surprised to discover
that, in it, Hard makes no mention of combat or valor. Instead, it is a
starkly personal meditation about a man visiting a graveyard by a brook.

And so it was with all the people there
    Whose names were carved on the stones:
    They were each one a part of the living present.
    To the living, who would come to that spot
    On this special day of remembrance,
    Had come something which lived on
    From generation to generation.
    Something passed on to be woven into the warp and woof
    Of new and ever-changing times.
    Things worthy and things unworthy;
    Things that helped and things that hindered;
    Talents hidden in a napkin of obscurity
    Which chance unfolded in another generation.
    There he stood in the midst of a world that had been
    But which was part of the living present
    As it would be of the days yet to come.
    Here indeed was life immortal.