Memorial Day

Monday, May 31, 2010

Memorial Day has always seemed like a rather bogus holiday to me. I viewed it as a much-needed day off of school, and felt that it otherwise had no point. However, I am happy to say that today's experience rather drastically changed my view.

Skyler's mother is from St. George, and her family has lived in and around St. George for generations. This means that several of her ancestors are buried in the St. George cemetery. Never having lived remotely close to my living relatives, let alone my dead ones, I didn't really see why this warranted an annual Memorial Day trip to the cemetery. Like I said, I never knew there was actually a purpose to Memorial Day. But to normal people, there apparently is.

So this morning we headed to the cemetery to meet Skyler's grandpa and his uncle's family. I had absolutely no idea what to expect; the only two times I've been in any cemetery (besides Arlington National Cemetery, which doesn't really count) have been for the funerals of my grandpa and grandma. I'll admit I was a bit nervous as we arrived at the cemetery, met his relatives, and began to find the graves of his other relatives. While casually strolling around, Skyler's mom mentioned to his grandpa that I'd never celebrated Memorial Day before, so this was a new experience for me. From that moment on, I'm pretty sure his grandfather made it his goal to make sure I had a Memorial Day experience I wasn't likely to forget.

He toured me all over that graveyard, stopping at graves to tell me exactly how the person was related to Skyler, and also related to the person whose grave we stopped at two graves before, and also to the cousin of the next person whose grave we were going to find. I'm pretty sure his grandpa got a little confused there in the middle, and mixed up a bit of the genealogy, because I stopped following the family tree for a while, but by the end, I'd gotten a very thorough history of Skyler's family history from the first of the line to settle in St. George to the most recently deceased. I'm convinced I know more of his family history than my own now. And though his brothers teased me about my forty-five minute history tour, I really enjoyed it. I've never lived near or even known much about my extended family, so it was neat to get a perspective from someone who loves genealogy. It also made me realize that there is a point to Memorial Day, and I'm grateful I finally learned what it is. Because taking the time to remember where we came from is always a worthwhile experience.