A Special Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day. Of course it is the day that we are to remember our fallen soldiers and those that have given their lives in sacrifice for our country's freedom. It began after the Civil War, and was known as "Decoration Day", when the wives and loved ones of the fallen soldiers would go and decorate their graves.

Here is a link that gives some of the history of why we celebrate "Memorial Day".

(copied from Internet)

Over the years and following the World Wars and other major conflicts, Memorial Day became a day to honor the memories of all fallen soldiers from all the different wars.  It also became a day for families to decorate the graves of their other loved ones in the cemetery as well as the soldiers'. My mother in law was very faithful to put fresh flowers and a flag on the graves of her departed loved ones on Memorial Day.  I regret that we are a little too far out of the way to go and decorate her grave  now that she has passed on.  We need to make it a point to go and do that perhaps for her birthday later this summer, if at all possible.

For us, this particular Memorial Day has taken on a new meaning for remembrance. I know I've already shared this with you in previous posts, but today is the 6th anniversary of the passing of our dear son Matthew, who died from a four year battle with cancer at the age of 41.

A couple of years ago we were blessed to be able to travel to Maine for our grandson's graduation from high school, and we were able to visit our son's gravesite for the first time. It was not long after Memorial Day, and the fire department had placed a special flag on his grave because of his volunteer service to their local fire department.  We were so thankful to see that his memory was being honored in that special way by his community.

This is a picture of Matthew as we took one of our last walks together on his property in Maine. He loved the woods and often retreated there just to think and enjoy the nature around him.

Because our son lived in Maine and was buried there, we, as his family here in Florida decided that we would create a special memorial garden in his memory at our home so that we would have a place to just sit and pray and meditate and remember him.   This was how it looked at our previous home:

Well, as most of you know, we moved away from that home last summer, and we are still in the process of developing our yard and garden areas at our new home.  But one thing I had already determined was that I wanted to set up another special area as a Memorial Garden in memory of our son.

If you read the following post last week https://pamelasopenwindow.blogspot.com/2020/05/some-monday-meanderings.html, you saw that I was attempting to dedicate myself to spend more determined prayer and meditation time in this special area where my garden bench is located. Likewise, the family here has agreed that that would also be the ideal location for our new "Memorial Garden".  And so today we decided to begin that process.

Here are our two sons who live here locally, getting things ready for the garden...

Some of you will remember these items and signs from our previous Secret Garden and Memorial Garden:

This will be a combination of "My Secret Garden" and the Memorial Garden, overlooking Still Waters Pond.  The plants that you see in the pots are the flowers that we brought with us from the other garden...that wonderful rosebush that blooms for every special day, and the other is the Rose of Sharon Bush that our son's wife picked out for the Memorial Garden.  Now that we have determined where the Memorial Garden should be, I will try to get these planted in the ground and properly fertilized, etc., so that they can begin growing once again. I pray they will thrive here as they did once before.

Little by little we will do more landscaping...and pray that the rains will fill Still Waters Pond back up. Today was a great beginning for all of the above.

And as a perfect ending for this day...amazingly that rose that I picked last week from the Memorial Rose Bush is still blooming for today!  Just another of God's special blessings to comfort and cheer us along the way.

I do hope that your Memorial Day has been a day of special reflection and appreciation for those who have given so much for our freedom. We dare not take those freedoms for granted as they can so easily be taken away.

Long may our flag wave "'o're the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave!".