It's Memorial Day and if you have served in the military, first, thank you for your service and sacrifice. It is easy to forget that the freedoms we enjoy in this country came at a price and many are still paying that price today.
But what do we do on a day like this?
Visit the gravesite of lost loved ones, attend a service, watch a movie, listen to music that was meaningful way back when.
But is that all we can do?
What does one do to memorialize, or preserve the memory of someone, to preserve the memory of people, events and loss?
One of the things that has been essential in my own life as I have grieved loss and preserved memories long gone is songwriting. The thing about songwriting is that it's like any other skill - you just try it at first and see what happens.
You could try writing down a memory or story of your own today.
Here's a bit of my story.
Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. In fact, one of them was scheduled to fight the land battle in Japan should the bombs have failed to bring the Japanese to surrender. The casualties on both sides of that potential reality were so grim it's highly likely my grandfather would have been killed, my father never born and me and my children would not be here.
But what's even more significant is what his father, my great grandfather, had been ignorantly working on for many years leading up to that moment. You see, my great grandfather was head of physics at the University of Louisville and for several years in the early 1940s he had been tasked by the US government to work on a secret project that not even he knew the full details of. Late night, last minute deadlines, calculations, tests, hypotheses, and several flights to D.C. to work with various scientists from around the country and the world, and he was unknowlingly working on the bombs that would save his own son's life and the lives of countless others.
For me, though, the story takes another twist. A couple years ago I made a friend in the city who was from Japan. His parents weren't just from Japan they were from Hiroshima, one of the two cities to be obliterated by my great grandfather's work.
So one day I told my friend my family story and I asked him what he thought.
What he said was remarkable: war is bad for everyone involved but peace is worth fighting for. And I thought that was a good idea for a song.
peace must be sought for
sadly, at times, must be fought for
but don't forget what the war's for
it's to make peace
What part of your story would you write down today to memorialize those who have fought, or are still fighting, for our country?
If you have a guitar, keep it simple and just strum the major 1, 4, 1, 5 for a bar each and repeat. Johnny Cash was king of keeping it simple and yet writing some of the most profound songs in American history.
Again, if you served our country, thank you.
And if you are still serving our country, thank you.
And if you've stayed home while your family member has served overseas, thank you.
-JB
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