Memorial Day, 2006

Jordan Cemetery, Memorial Day 2006

I think Memorial Day is my favorite holiday. At least it was when I was young. Memorial Day was always like a mini family reunion. It was when aunts and uncles and cousins that you rarely got to see came over from Nebraska to decorate the graves of their families. We spent the whole day at Jordan Cemetery. We children playing hide and seek amongst the tombstones or in the hills; the men visiting or playing horseshoes; the women sitting in the adjoining church gossiping and catching up with family news. The Church's Ladies Aid Society would fix coffee and lemonade and serve pies and sweets in the basement where it was dark and cool.

Now the church is gone - torn down many years ago when the congregation dwindled along with the population. The ones who came to decorate and visit are lying here or in a cemetery elsewhere. Just us children remain to decorate and remember - and there not many of us left either. Busy lives full of families, jobs and obligations keep them from making the journey "home" to Jordan to remember. To remember the days full of family and food and laughter. But I remember.... I'll always remember.