A Country Memorial Day

Joy wells up inside of me as I picture our time together on Decoration Day. For generations, my family would travel down dusty dirt roads and pull into the one-way path that looped through Peniel Cemetery somewhere between Aledo and Joy, Illinois. It was an important tradition to memorialize those who gave it all. Even as a young girl, I felt the importance of this day. It wasn’t one that I looked forward to like Christmas, but it was a somber tradition of great depth and meaning that brought us together to celebrate the lives of those who served and protected. Those that had been to places far from the small country church with it’s white steeple and musty smell to ensure that generations were safe at home amid the cornfields. Each Memorial Day it was a reunion of sorts with relatives and friends complete with warm greetings and big hugs, it was a special time that still fills me with the warmth that comes from loving others and being loved.

As young girls, my cousin and I would sit impatiently waiting as speakers shared the importance of Memorial Day and our responsibility to honor our homegrown Veterans. Sitting in the hard wooden pews in my favorite yellow dress tapping my toes, blonde hair tied in a pony tail, my mother sat next to me. Her beehive hair groomed to perfection, she would help pass the time by sharing sticks of Juicy Fruit. When the speakers ended, we would all get up and were drawn to the church entryway, like cattle to their feed, by the fragrance of the purple and white irises. I’m certain that every year someone harvested these flowers from their garden and brought them to spread among the graves in honor of those that had fallen. People cared, that's what country living is about, and that is why the doors of the Peniel Church were opened every Memorial Day.

We would quietly exit with our arms loaded and faces buried by the fresh flowers to descend carefully down the steps and into the graveyard. We were greeted by small American flags waving among the headstones indicating where to lay our tributes and decorations. The grounds had been immaculately manicured much like the neighboring fields had been prepared for seeding, as if each cut of the grass was in thanks and praise to those we honored.

While there was no plan that I knew of, somehow all of the young children would spread out and be sure to heap flowers upon those marked graves. Often, running back to the entryway whose doors were only opened this one day every year for another load in order to decorate the graves of those who had given so much. The adults would walk soberly through the rows of graves, and in hushed tones share the stories of those buried in these sacred grounds.

As I grew up and spent less time back home, the opportunity to join my grandma, my mom, her sisters and my cousins became a treasured treat. My grandma had observed Decoration day with her mother and sisters before me and there was a deep heritage and tradition of services at Peniel. We would leave our love behind as we followed other cars out of the cemetery loop, making plans to share lunch or shopping together and treasuring our time together.

In what seems like no time at all, it would be my own children that would traverse the stairs arms loaded with blooms to decorate the graves at Peniel. Watching them, I would breathe in the fresh country air and listen to cattle grazing. Soaking in the country and remembering the heritage of days gone by. The sight of acres and acres of freshly tilled land that would soon be cornfields surrounding the cemetery and protecting those who were buried here would be on my mind.

While I shared stories of loved ones buried in hushed tones with my cousins, I soaked in the simple but difficult life of being farmers and living off of the land. Thankful for those who have and will protect our freedom to build families with traditions like ours. There, in that small cemetery on the outskirts of town, I felt the joy of sweet memories and the sorrow of those we had lost.

I haven’t been back to Peniel for some time. My last visit there is etched in my memory as clearly as the photograph that I snapped. My mom and her sisters in one row, with an aunt and cousins sitting a row ahead. The warmth and love, the laughter and tears, all marking the specialness of this place. Gone are the beehive hairdo’s and in their place are graying heads of girls that were once themselves the decorators of the graves. Who had memories with cousins and the sweetness of this place. Standing next to me are my own daughters, waiting patiently to search out the flags in the graveyard with their cousins.

My memory is protected as sure as those veteran’s protected us and as the cornstalks stand guard. My grandmother and mother are no longer here to pass on the holiness of this day and it now becomes my job, my joy, to gather my children and honor those who have gone before us and given it all to serve us. The generations of warriors and heroes that rest here at the end of a dirt road in the middle of rural Illinois where so many childhood memories on how to give love and respect for others, their hard work and their sacrifice could be as simple as a few prayers and hymns, a mound of fresh-cut flowers and generations honoring the tradition of coming together for a country memorial on the outskirts of Joy, Illinois.