'Life is precious': A national day of mourning for military lives lost | McKibben

After serving as a hospice minister for years, I was used to hearing that we live in a death-denying society. I had heard, read about, and experienced the ways we distance death, i.e., by outsourcing the care of the dying or avoiding frank conversations about death or failing to make plans regarding our own inevitable death.

I knew about the pitfalls of such an approach to the most common human event that we all face.

Memorial Day ceremonies: Memorial Day: Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3308, Leon County plan ceremonies

Film honors veterans: Tallahassee nonprofit shares film honoring veterans for Memorial Day

What came as a shock to me, in preparing for a presentation at the Senior Center in 2018, was the words of Diane Meier, MD, Geriatrician, Palliative Care Physician, and Director of the National Center to Advance Palliative Care, who said, “I think encouraging people to talk about death is a mistake.”

It seemed true to my experience that we are averse to talking about death, but I had been under the impression that it was necessary and important to do so, not a mistake.

Encouraging people to talk about death was exactly the intent of my presentation at the Senior Center for National Healthcare Decisions Day, and also the intent of the Death Café that I had been involved in for years, so it was a bit disconcerting to learn from an expert in the field that it might be misguided.

Living well

Her point, she explained, is not to be critical of any cultural openness to contemplating death or its value, but to understand that the medical community has the primary goal of “helping our patients and their families live as well and as fully as possible while they are alive.”

Dr. Meier does not discount the ways in which accepting death can create important opportunities for adding quality to life, she just says that it flies in the face of millions of years of human evolution to say it is OK to die. She goes on to explain that very few people want to die, particularly if they have a quality of life that’s acceptable to them.

“Life is precious, and sweet,” she says, “and my job as a physician is to help my patients get as much of that good quality life as they can.”

Life is precious, and this is what makes this weekend’s day of national mourning particularly poignant.

Memorial Day traditions

Memorial Day Weekend is when we remember the many lives lost in military service to our county through the years. One of the earliest Memorial Day observances in our country was held by freed African American slaves in Charleston, South Carolina.

After Confederate soldiers left Charleston, a group of freed slaves gathered to honor and properly bury bodies of union soldiers that had been buried in a mass grave near a posh racetrack. The racetrack had been converted into a Union prison where 260 soldiers died. On May 1, 1865, according to reports in “The New York Tribune” and “The Charleston Courier,” a crowd of 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves and white missionaries, staged a parade around the racetrack in memory of and respect for the “Martyrs of the Racetrack.”

Just three years later, in 1868, Union General John A. Logan suggested that May 30 should be the first annual day dedicated to the memory of all soldiers who died during the Civil War.

While observed unofficially in towns and cities across the US for decades, often as Decoration Day in reference to cleaning or decorating graves, it was not until 1950 that Congress passed a resolution asking the President to "issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe Memorial Day, by praying, each in accordance with his (or her) religious faith, for permanent peace."

It took another 21 years for Memorial Day to become a federal holiday, intended to observe and honor the people who lost their lives while serving in the U.S. military, and held on the last Monday of the month of May.

National moment of remembrance

The earliest intent of Memorial Day is extremely important to keep in focus. Amidst the cookouts, swim parties, and Memorial Day sales, we want to carve out the time to remember those who lost their precious and sweet lives while serving our country.

It may not be natural to talk about death, but it is natural to mourn those we love and have lost to death. And this national day of mourning gives us the structure to do so, not only for civil war losses but for military losses in all wars, including World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Besides decorating the graves of family members or friends who died in service of our country on Memorial Day, attending Memorial Day parades or concerts, or watching or listening to programs that remind us of the sacrifices of many, all Americans are asked to participate in a national moment of remembrance at 3 p.m. local time on Monday, May 30.

In keeping with the congressional Memorial Day resolution of 1950, it seems more appropriate than ever for everyone, in accordance with his or her religious faith, to pray for permanent peace.

Coming together

The pandemic has changed how we as a people mourn. Many have lost loved ones without the benefit of being with them as they die or having a funeral or life celebration for them due to COVID restrictions. The reduction in grief rituals may create a free-floating layer of grief for all of us that this Memorial Day can address.

The simple but profound ritual of coming together as a nation at 3 p.m. Monday, May 30, to remember those who have died for our country may give us an opportunity to remember not only these valiant heroes, but also other losses that need our acknowledgement in these troubled days.

May we all, in whatever way we pray and find strength for our soul, unite our hearts in a moment of remembrance this Memorial Day.

The Rev. Candace McKibben is an ordained minister and pastor of Tallahassee Fellowship.

Memorial Day Services

Leon County will honor the brave men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military by placing wreaths at memorials and monuments in the community during Memorial Day weekend.

There will be will wreath laid during a formal ceremony hosted by the American Legion Sauls-Bridges Post 13 at 11 a.m. Monday, May 30 at 11 a.m. at Oakland Cemetery, 838 North Bronough St.

The County will also place wreaths at six additional locations:

Tallahassee National Cemetery, 5015 Apalachee Parkway

World War II Memorial at the Leon County Courthouse, 301 South Monroe Street

Korean War Memorial at Cascades Park, 790-798 Suwannee Street

Florida Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 463-489 South Monroe Street

Big Bend Hospice Veterans Memorial Garden, 1723 Mahan Center Boulevard

Daniel B. Chaires Community Park, 4768 Chaires Cross Road

Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3308 will hold a ceremony for departed comrades at 11 a.m. Monday, May 30, at the cemetery on Fox Road, off Crawfordville Highway. Post 3308 is perhaps one of the only VFW Posts in the country with a cemetery.

Never miss a story:  Subscribe to the Tallahassee Democrat using the link at the top of the page.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Pause on Memorial Day to remember the military lives lost