In Memorium

With the speed of the car, the French countryside blurred into red and green. It was as if Monet himself had poked a paintbrush through the clouds to touch up the poppies in the fields just for us; for me. Because he knew I was coming. Because he knows I love red. His red.

After a week in the hustle and bustle of Paris, amid budding trees and spring bulbs, we were headed north. Towards wide open space and green fields full of poppies and yellow wildflowers that swayed in the gentle breezes of the Spring air. We spent a semi-rowdy morning running along the cobblestones and ducking down narrow alleyways at Mont Saint-Michel. All of us piled in two cars and caravanned to the Landing Beaches of Normandy. Fearing the children would be restless, the grown-ups cautioned and quieted. Once we arrived, no reminders were necessary. Even the little ones of our bunch became reverent as we walked through the rose gardens towards the cemetery and The Memorial from the Gardens of the Missing.

There, on a plot of American soil graciously granted to us by France, on a large field of green are over 9,000 gravestones, standing still no matter the breeze or the season. Marking the lives of U.S. Servicemen and women who lost their lives during WWII, row after row after row they poke up from the ground like flowers, stretching up towards the sun. We walked the lawn overlooking the English Channel and marveled at how, from any angle, all the headstones lined up: a symbol of order to the chaos that was.

I suppose from time to time those that lost their lives reach their finger through the clouds to trace along the narratives on the wall of the colonnade, words of encouragement, words of tribute. Those who were never identified nor found, but whose names are chiseled into the stone, walk the rose gardens (perhaps bringing a paintbrush) to prove that they were. That they are. That they always will be. They do not sleep, but there they lie, to etch in our memory the importance of liberty and life, so we won't forget. So we will pause in reverence and run our fingers along the narratives in the colonnades of history, tracing the names of those who gave their lives in pursuit of our happiness; our future; our freedom.

Today, we remember. We pay tribute. We give thanks to those no longer with us, those who have fought and those who continue to fight, never sleeping though poppies grow. We shall hold the torch high. We shall not break faith. We shall always remember.


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.