I have heard stories of musicians recording entire albums only to scrap them because the sound just didn’t feel right. I have also heard of writers deleting entire manuscripts because they were dissatisfied with the final product. Until this week, I could never fully relate to that feeling.
I originally started writing about three issues that, while seemingly unrelated, felt deeply connected to me: our national debt now exceeding 100% of GDP, declining reading and math scores across the country, and the growing efforts by state legislatures to redraw congressional districts to benefit whichever political party happens to be in power.
The essay was finally beginning to come together when I suddenly deleted the entire thing.
Why?
To answer that question, I think of a line from Wallace Stegner’s novel All the Little Live Things:
“I am concerned with gloomier matters: the condition of being flesh, susceptible to pain, infected with consciousness and the consciousness of consciousness, doomed to death and the awareness of death.”
As I received concerning news about my mother’s health this week, I also found myself thinking about close friends who recently lost parents—one grieving the loss of his mother, another mourning the loss of her father. Watching my own parents navigate the struggles that often accompany old age can be emotionally overwhelming. My mother and father have lived long, rich, meaningful lives, yet seeing their physical challenges reminds me how fragile all of life really is.
And honestly, when I find myself anxious or worried about my parents, I also think about those who no longer have the opportunity to call their mother or father. In those moments, I almost feel selfish for taking for granted that my parents are still here with us in their eighties.
Those thoughts about loss, gratitude, and remembrance naturally led me to think about Memorial Day.
Memorial Day officially became a federal holiday in 1971, though its origins trace back to honoring the fallen soldiers of the Civil War. At its core, Memorial Day exists to remember and honor the men and women of the United States military who gave their lives in service to this nation.
Across America, communities still gather for ceremonies, parades, cemetery tributes, and moments of silence. Yet sometimes it feels as though we collectively drift further from the true meaning of the day. Somewhere between the backyard cookouts, mattress sales, and the unofficial start of summer, it becomes easy to forget the real reason the holiday exists.
The political divide in our country is impossible to ignore today, and in many ways that was what my original essay intended to explore. But as my thoughts turned toward heavier matters this week, my mind instead returned to Abraham Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg:
“It is for us the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Those words were spoken for the dead at Gettysburg, but they echo far beyond one battlefield and one generation. They speak to every American soldier, sailor, airman, marine, and guardian who has sacrificed in service to this country. They also challenge every citizen to think beyond ourselves and remember the responsibility we share to preserve what others gave everything to protect.
Reciting Lincoln alone will not heal the divisions within our country. But perhaps remembering sacrifice, duty, humility, and gratitude is a good place for all of us to begin.
To those who have served this country, thank you for your service.
To those who gave their lives for this nation, we honor you and we remember you.
And to the loved ones we have lost—those ordinary people who made their families, friendships, and communities better simply by being good people doing good work—we remember you too this Memorial Day.
Please remember to keep the Memorial in Memorial Day.
That’s the Perspective from Petenwell this week.
Until next Friday…