This Memorial Day remember those who gave all

And visit a cemetery to thank those who loved you with their all

My dad always took us to the cemetery every Memorial Day weekend to remember everyone we had lost.

I love cemeteries because of my dad. He taught me a cemetery isn’t just for the dead, it’s for the living, whose lives go on to tell the stories of those who lived, laughed, loved and left.

So much life goes on in a cemetery. People sit and chat with deceased parents, spouses and children. They leave their stories and their stones, their regrets and their rants, their prayers and their pardons.

Those gravesites keep memories alive, and when memories stay alive, so do the people who passed. When you keep the stories alive, you keep the people you love alive.

My dad took us to the cemetery religiously. He’s now buried there, next to his parents in that small Catholic cemetery in Ravenna. Every Memorial Day he brought us to decorate the graves of his parents.

I think he also wanted us to witness the sea of flags planted there by veterans’ groups on the graves of soldiers who died in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. My dad wanted us to see that scene and be grateful for their service and sacrifice.

Each year at the local parade, I tear up thinking about my dad and my uncles who fought to save the world. My dad, the tail gunner. My mom’s brother, Mike, a U.S. Army Ranger who survived the Dieppe Raid. Her brother, Chuck, who ended up in a German POW camp at 19 years old. He spent three years there.

This country meant the world to them, no matter who ran it, no matter what direction they took it, this was the home they fought to preserve.

My dad flew 33 missions in the China Burma Theater of WWII. He kept a shiny artillery shell casing on his desk as a pencil holder and we played with the little ivory elephants he brought back from India.

When he died from cancer at 83, they gave him a military sendoff. At that cemetery he so loved, they draped a flag over his coffin, fired the guns and a soldier took a knee and handed my mom his folded flag and said, “A grateful nation thanks you.” Then they played taps for my dad.

I’m so grateful that Dad played a part in saving the world. And for making faith, family and country the top priorities in his life.

In every Memorial Day visit after we put flowers on the graves he took us to the baby section near the fence to visit the tiny grave of his little brother, Michael.

The markers are as small as newborns and hard to find. They sit low to the ground, as if the grass itself is snuggling them.

Michael is alive in my heart because of those Memorial Day visits. I stopped by his grave last week. I would never have known of his brief four months of life if not for those Memorial Day visits.

My dad was 7 when his baby brother died. Little Michael took his last breath in bed, and standing here at his grave where his family all cried their goodbyes, I wonder if his mom ever exhaled after losing him.

His tombstone reads:

Michael Francis Brett
April 1, 1922 Sept. 28

My dad’s baby brother, the uncle I never met, lived for just 5 1/2 months, from April to September. I wouldn’t even know he existed but for that marker. It gave my dad a chance to tell the story of his little brother, how baby Michael didn’t wake up that morning. Every time Dad told it, he got a tear in his eyes.

He was only 7 when his brother died in 1922, but a 7-year-old boy doesn’t forget losing his baby brother, ever. The cemetery made us all remember. There are no photos of baby Michael, just a grave for us to know he existed.

I felt my dad’s presence last week when I stopped by their graves. Growing up, a train whistle was our lullaby on Sycamore Street just a few blocks from the cemetery. The railroad tracks were nearly in our backyard. Every time I hear a train, it feels like I’m being called home.

The tracks run next to the cemetery. Before I left, a CSX train full of coal cars thundered past, screeching hello. Then a hawk that had been circling above for most of my visit called out loudly and flew away just as I was leaving.

I swear it was my ancestors thanking me for remembering them.

Author Claudia Pemberton once wrote, “America without her soldiers would be like God without his angels.” Our cemeteries are full of angels.

In the midst of all the picnics and parades, remember them this Memorial Day weekend.

And give thanks to all those who lived, loved and left you a better person.