About Decoration Day: Memorial Day - Lilacs in a Fruit Jar

This morning I poured over the newspaper to see what events are happening here in the Twin Cities on Memorial Day 2011.  So much has changed since I was a child ---duaaaahhhh!

Yes, as a child, I knew it as Decoration Day - the day when we remembered falled soldiers foremost.  One year as a Girl Scout I marched in the parade in Zumbrota, MN stopping on the bridge over the Zumbro River to drop rose petals into the water in memory of those who died at sea before proceeding to the cemetery to put rose petals on the graves of soldiers.  Then somewhere along life's path it became Memorial Day - a time to remember fallen soldiers and deceased family members.

Every year...without fail...tradition held that our first stop was my grandparents farm where the kids gathered lilacs, peonies, lilies of the vally, put them in quart jars full of water and then carefully handed them to family members who would hold them carefully in the car as we drove to the Old Concord Cemetery to place them on graves of our ancestors among the graves of soliders marked by brand new flags placed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.  Sometime during this ritual, we'd hear the West Concord High School Marching Band begin to warm up pulling us to the south end of the cemetery for the annual Memorial Day Program of music, prayers and a patriotic speech.

It was a time when my elders would see friends they had not seen since the previous year who returned for this annual event - my relatives came from the Twin Cities, Rochester, Pine Island, Zumbrota and Marion, IA.  Soon the kids were spilling out all (respectfully of course) over the cemetery and had to be rounded up when it was time to return to grampa and gramma's farm for the annual feast of a gazillion salads, "Dodge Center baked beans" (Aunt Jane brought them), deviled eggs and everything rhubard!  If grampa hadn't mowed it also meant us kids could make dandelion necklaces, bracelets, smear "dandelion dust" on ourselves and each other!  Many years these events included four generations of our family.  The yard and driveway were lined with cars - mostly grey or black until the year Grampa Willie bought a brand-spanking new red Ford " just for Gramma Elsie."

So, Memorial Day 2011 is two days away:  I have sent off emails to family members whose father was a prisoner of war in WWII (declared killed in action but returned home a year later after the prisoner of war camp was liberated by the Russians) and died April 19, 2010; my family no longer goes to Old Concord and gas prices are now over $3.75/gallon, so I will plan to stop by on a day when I am down in Rochester to stroll from the graves of my great-grandparents to my mom's and  "pay my respects" remembering them by dropping flower petals on the graves as I go; this year I will attend the Veterans for Peace Memorial Day Service at the Vietnam Memorial south of the Minnesota State Capitol at 9:00 a.m. and then let the day unfold quietly here in the city.

I have no lilacs in my yard but not to be deterred, I know where to get some which I will put in a quart jar and set on my kitchen table - and I will make rhubard/strawberry crisp to share in the days ahead.  Decoration Day/Memorial Day was one of my favorite traditions growing up.  I miss its richness...

About broken hearts



Simon Linder

 I moved to Randolph Avenue November 1998.  It was then I met the kid with the brightest red hair and vibrant always smiling face and quick hi over the fence who lived next door.  I came to know Simon as a great neighbor and friend, son of my friend/neighbor, Lynne, a tremedously talented musician with a creative mind that was always always creating, and I came to know about the heart condition that he was born with...a condition that reared its head from time to time - and each  time Simon rose to the challenge and healed.

Last September he married the love of his life, Steph, at a Girl Scout Camp along the St. Croix River near North Branch. They married in the log building overlooking the river on a brilliant sun filled late summer day surrounded by family and friends of all ages.  They rented the whole camp, so guests stayed in tents and cabins and Yurts...his mom and I shared a Yurt! A first for both of us. 

There is so much to say...and I can't seem to say it ... you see Simon's heart stopped beating around 1:00 this morning and so many hearts are now broken... sometimes there just are no words with any real meaning. 

When he was hospitalized for two weeks on life support a few years ago, I visited him in the ICU as his "Aunt Ginger"...so I could be with him and his mom...tonight "Aunt Ginger" just wanted to see a picture of him and decided to go to Google Images where I entered "Simon Linder Saint Paul Minnesota"...and there he was ... smiling!

I saved Lynne's message telling me "his heart stopped and he died last night"...I have replayed it ... I have talked to her ... hugged her and...promised to keep my cell phone on if she needs anything night or day...and tonight everything moves through tears.  It can be NO other way.

About Beautiful Yellow Flowers

"Beautiful Yellow Flowers"

I met Abby during my years as household coordinator for Sarah's...an Oasis for Women, a Ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province.  She came to the United States seeking asylum from Ethiopia, leaving behind her family, friends, culture and so much more - and she brought them with her changing forever how I see the world in so many ways.

One beautiful spring afternoon she returned from her English classes and found me working in the yard at Sarah's.  We visited under a brilliant sapphire blue sky while scanning the neighborhood.  After a few minutes she asked, "how come we have so many beautiful yellow flowers in our yard and these (her eyes scanned the neighborhood) are only green?"  That was the day we talked about the word weed,  how it means any plant that grows where someone does not want it to grow and how many people decide that the dandelion is a weed.

At that time, we chose not to kill the dandelions in the yard at Sarah's because of the cost to the environment, the cost to humans and animals who are impacted by the toxic nature of most weed killers available at that time.  Abby and I decided that dandelions are flowers, NOT weeds!  I also explained that our choice not to kill them probably meant some people in the neighborhood with very green yards wished we would kill them so the seeds would not take flight in the wind and threaten the manicured green "beauty" of their lawns.

Our conversation also reminded me again of my childhood when dandelions were a welcomed sign of spring - when we made beautiful amazing dandelion necklaces and bracelets and fat bouquets that filled out little hands and gleefully presented to our moms and grammas and teachers.  We also rubbed the flower on our cheeks to "put the sun there" for all to see.  Like Abby we saw spring beauty.

I just looked out my den window and discovered that on this very very cool spring Saturday morning, all that is growing with any intensity are beautiful brilliant yellow dandelions - and the less vibrant but equally tenacious lavender creeping charlie, another "weed," yikes! 

Yesterday as and friend and I took a drive into the country, we noticed dandelions abundantly gracing lawns and farm fields and cemeteries and road ditches.  But we didn't see any children gathering them into bouquets or making necklaces or bracelets out of them.

Since meeting Abby I am wonderfully reminded of days gone by when dandelions were a sign of spring bring joy and no one I knew considered them weeds.

About - the third week of Easter

Civil Rights Memorial
Southern Poverty Law Center
Montgomery, AL

Early the morning of April 27 we flew to Midway Airport in Chicago enroute to Birmingham, AL to begin our Civil Rights tour of Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery.   At the conclusion of our tour we planned to attend the 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Southern Poverty Law Center and attend the workshops on topics like hate in the mainstream, hate crimes directed at law enforcement/government, and the civil rights of immigrants and more!

Little did we know that our trip would be wrapped around the devistating tornadoes that struck Tuscaloosa, Birmingham and other cities in north and central Alabama.

We heard the founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Morris Dees and Joe Levin Jr.; Julian Bond, first president of the SPLC; Pam Horowitz, one of the first attorneys at SPLC and leaders at SPLC today describe the journey from a two man law office committed to litigating civil rights cases regardless of the ability of those most impacted to pay to an internationally recognized civil rights organization employing 185 persons.

The SPLC overlooks the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church were the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as senior pastor and is one block from the Alabama State Capitol where the Selma to Montgomery March for civil rights culminated  - and is just blocks from where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus.

The event attracted nearly 2000 persons from 49 states!  There is so much to say - and learn from the work of SPLC.  The best way is to visit http://www.splcenter.org/ to learn about teaching tolerance, hate in the mainstream, current litigation, current documentarys that focus on cutting edge civil rights issues of the new millennium.

Though I have been home a week and a day - and I am even more commited to the work of the SPLC than I was two weeks ago.  And, I was not sure that was even possible when I left!  It is not only possible, it is very real.