Every year around this time, I find myself pausing. Not just because the calendar says it's a three-day weekend, or because the grill needs to be cleaned because of mold, a Pacific Northwest thing, and the lawn chairs and my favorite Adirondack chair needs to be rinsed.
I pause because there are two flags in my yard. One is the United States flag and one is the U.S. Army flag.
Neither are especially large. The U.S. flag doesn’t wave as dramatically as the one that flies at the post office or over a parade route.
But it’s mine. And, more than that, it’s ours.
Memorial Day is often mistaken for Veterans Day. The difference, though sobering, matters: Memorial Day is not for thanking the living but for remembering the dead — those who gave the last full measure of devotion, as President Abraham Lincoln said, so the rest of us could go on living the way we do.
I remember the first time I really understood that.
I was maybe 10 years old. My grandpa took me to the cemetery, one of those older ones where the stones stand like sentinels and the grass is always just a little too long. He pointed out numerous stones with names written on them — names I didn’t recognize. Grandpa told me this man had gone to war and never come back. There wasn’t a flag there, just a weather-worn marker and the stillness of time.
“Not everyone gets a parade,” grandpa said.
As a kid, I didn’t quite understand what he meant. But over the years, it came into focus: Memorial Day is not about the spectacle. It’s about the silence.
The silence in a mother’s home after the knock at the door.
The silence in a platoon that comes back one person short.
The silence in a heart that never really heals.
We honor that silence — not just with flags and flowers but with lives well-lived, freedoms cherished and memories carried forward to generations who have never known war.
I recall stories I have heard or read. This day is about Staff Sergeant Thomas, who dove on the grenade so others could live. It’s about Petty Officer Ramirez, who volunteered for one more tour so his younger brother wouldn’t have to go. It’s about Lieutenant Kim, who wrote in her last letter home, “If I don’t make it back, know that I went where I felt I was needed most.”
And it's about the family who still set an extra plate at dinner — not because they expect someone to return, but because they never stopped remembering.
So yes, enjoy the barbecue. Enjoy the day off. But also — take a moment. Pause by the flag in your yard. Whisper a name you remember, or one you never knew but still owe. If you have children, tell them why the flag is there. Remind them that freedom didn’t come free. It never has.
As for me, I’ll sit on my Adirondack chair with my coffee, watch the sunrise over that little flag in the yard, and say a quiet thank you to all those who never came home.
God bless them.
God bless their families.
And may we never forget what this day is really for.
Richard Stride is the current CEO of Cascade Community Healthcare.
