Memorial Day was started as a way of remembering those who died during the Civil War. Which leads to my tale.

There is a cemetery near where I lived that has a legend attached to it.

Forty years after the Civil War the family that lived closest to the graveyard noticed an odd occurance. Every year on the same night a bright light shown out of the graveyard. The oldest son decided to find out what was happening. So he hid out amongst the stones waiting. About midnight he saw a light seeming to move from one side of the cemetery to the other. The eerie light glowed and seemed to expand. He crept closer and closer until he could see an unbelievable sight.

A woman in black with a black veil was placing a small bouquet of posies on a grave surrounded by other graves. The odd thing was he could see through her. He blinked several times trying to make sense of this. Finally she turned and went back the way she came. Next to the small fence she seemed to disappear. There was a lone grave with no marker.

The next day he talked to the oldest man in the church.

"That grave belongs to old Mrs Grubb. She was the last of her family to go. She survived her only son by thirty years."

"Did she visit her son's grave?"

"Sure did son. Every year on the day he died and put a small bunch of flowers there. Stopped the day she got sick and died."

"Why didn't they put her with him?"

"No room. A lot of soldiers buried all around him."

In this cemetery even the dead remember their soldiers. So on this Memorial day remember those that have fallen-- either in war or that served and died later. It doesn't matter whether you believe in wars or not. It does matter that these soldiers are remembered.

In Shirley Temple's movie "The Bluebird of Happiness" (1940) there is a quote that says "you are not truly gone as long as someone remembers you."

In Mrs Grubb and her son's case even death couldn't stop the memory.

Take care my friends!