Saturday, May 29, 2010

In Memorial ...


US Marine Corps Memorial
Originally uploaded by <wikd>

Memorial: "Something intended to celebrate or honor the memory of a person or an event." ~ American Heritage Dictionary

I never truly understood the meaning of Memorial Day as a young person or even as a young adult. I viewed it as a 3 day weekend, which provided an extra day of partying, another excuse to drink longer and harder.

The true meaning of Memorial Day is to commemorate the soldiers who lost their lives fighting to defend our country.

I spoke with my mother early this morning on my way to teach a class. She shared with me that she would be attending the Memorial Day Service at the graveyard where my father is buried. And how she ordered red carnations to put on his grave. What I didn't know is that she's been doing this every year since he died nearly 17 years ago. I had no idea. I didn't even think to ask.

My father was a Marine. He fought in the Korean War in the early 50's. He lost nearly all of his friends. My mother often has remarked that he came home a completely and forever changed man.

I have never returned to the cemetary where my father's body lies. It is not that I do not wish to honor him; it is about the meaning of the location. For me, these are places where bodies decay underground, these outer coverings that encased the "beingness" of humans while they were here on the earth plane, and that the true "residence" a person's soul occupies in the afterlife is not anywhere that is tangible. A Memorial at a cemetary does not feel like a true tribute to a person's essence, but rather it is a concrete (no pun intended) destination for people still here to visit the dead -- as if there is a special connection to the rotting bones six feet under.
I am fully aware as I write in this moment that my own issues of transference are very activated -- particularly around burial grounds and those who hold them in high regard as the primary place to make contact with the deceased.

The way in which I have chosen to memorialize my father is to practice forgiveness toward him in any way I am able. This includes how I share about his alcoholism in AA meetings I attend and in the ways I talk about memories I have about him with family members. I have worked over the past year or so to stop being disparaging and resentful in how I recall my relationship with him. I have softened a great deal toward my father -- primarily because of my healing work but also because I can more fully understand the impact and the damaging effects of war on his psyche. I really do have compassion for him when I think about the inner turmoil he battled in his own mind everyday and how alcohol was used to erase those graphic tapes.

I realize that my mother needs to ease her own burdens of guilt and remorse of outliving and moving on without my father and so she fulfills this obligation of visiting his grave on Memorial Day. It feels to some extent that she may do this so that she can be forgiven -- by him, by God -- for how much she resented, even hated him for his drinking and how he treated her.

So my mother will place her red carnations on the concrete slab and be with my father in her own way. I, on the other hand, will think about the man who lost his innocence by doing what was expected of him and that this was more than just an admirable sacrifice for his country -- he lost the person he once was. And for that, I honor my father's memory.

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