I can’t remember if it’s today that used to be caled Rememberance Day or not. In any case, it’s a fitting title. And I want to remember…

            Names engraved in granite, dates and sayings made of shock and grief that radiate heat under the summer sun.  Ike and Helen Moore, my grandparents.  Joshua, my brother.  Kimberly, age 14; Stacie, age 5; both cousins.  Time has done little more than weather the gravestones and dull the pain.

            And the others, nameless, faceless men and women who chose to anonymously serve and protect.  I cannot tell you their names; only that there were brave, honorable, and sacrificial, to the point of death.  And death came; a bullet slicing flesh on a city sidewalk, the glint of sunlight off a machete in a South American jungle; a car that came out of nowhere.  I remember them, too, their names engraved nowhere but on my heart.

            And I remember those who did not die, but who have sacrificed some of the best years of their lives and pieces of their soul to serve their country.  My grandfather, great uncles, cousins, friends.  And those who have chosen to protect us domestically; firefighters and policemen; my father, my sister, my uncle, so many friends.  These are my heros, though they will deny any possibility that they are brave.  People the world will not remember, but who have daily exhibited courage, sacrifice, and honor.

            But the word “memorial day” means more than simply rememberance.  It can, in fact, mean celebration.

            Death isn’t often something to celebrate, even sacrificial, brave death.  It still leaves a life unlived, people unloved, memories not made.  I can’t celebrate that.

            But people are not courageous in a moment.  It’s an odd thing about courage, and honor, and dignity, and sacrifice.  It is not a momentary choice.  The soldier throwing himself on a grenade is not choosing courage in that moment; neither is the firefighter running into a burning building, or a police officer chasing an assailant.  There simply isn’t time to make choices. 

            These are very courageous acts, made by very courageous people, for whom bravery is more than a choice, more than a momentary impulse.  Instead, courage, honor, and sacrifice have become a way of life.  How we die is how we’ve lived; if we’ve chosen courage and honor in the small things, we will choose them in the big things.  Courage begins as a choice; practiced daily, it becomes a way of life.  Those we call heroes were heroes long before they died, and this is why I celebrate.  Not death, or even the way that they died, but how they lived. 

            And I celebrate this by practicing courage, and honor, and sacrifice in the small things of my every day life; telling the truth when a lie would be more convenient, letting someone ahead of me in a crowded store line, respecting others and myself.  And if the ultimate question is ever asked of me, I pray I respond without hesitation, having already prepared myself in the little things.