A memorial is defined as something serving to preserve remembrance. 

For many of us today as we think about memorials, we have had a rough year of losses. A rough year for memorializing those other than our soldiers that fought and sacrificed their lives in war. I send out this message to you today who are mourning and searching for a memorial to anyone that you have lost in your life this year. Finding a way to remember and honor their memory. Dust off the favorite family recipe that when you mix the flour and the eggs you find the peace to honor and remember. Watch that movie that will make you picture their laugh when you get to that favorite part. Go to the place that makes you remember them. Find that thing that is set up to remind you of that person or event and do so with courage and grace. 

Memorial Day is an American holiday observed on the last Monday of May, honoring those who died while serving the military. The Civil War claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. History and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. With the cemeteries came visitors holding tributes to fallen soldiers, decorating graves with flowers and prayers. The first Memorial Day remembrances are said to have been organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York as the official birthplace of Memorial Day and then it was signed as a federal holiday in 1971. 

Memorializing the sacrifice of so many people who have given their lives fighting for their country is encapsulated in the poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. He channeled the voice of fallen soldiers buried under the fields of wildflowers, particularly poppies.  

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place; and in the sky. 
The larks, still bravely singing, fly. 
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the Dead. Short days ago 
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie. 
In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 
To you from failing hands we throw 
The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
If ye break faith with us who die 
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow. 
In Flanders fields.