Memorial Day

Ever since we moved here Emma has had some strange attraction to the cemetery and I have been promising to take her over there to see it closer. I guess because we live so closely to it and you can actually see it from the house we live in, it adds to her curiosity. We finally took all the kids there after explaining what memorial day is and letting them pick a bunch of wild flowers down by the creek. There were some beautiful grave-stones and it really is a peaceful place to walk around. It was a good reminder of how precious this life is and how temporary our state is here and to treat each day as the blessing that it is. I was so impressed with all of the local people who made visits during the holiday. There was barely a grave without flowers and a ton of visitors.

As we were walking around we came upon a tribute to those who died in the civil war. There was a beautiful statue there in memory of the sacrifices made. It was very thought provoking to look and see graves that were from close to that time period. It made me think deeply about the blessings that we have had as a nation and even the incredible founding of this country. At times it is so easy to forget how new our country really is. It sure put things into perspective to look around and see the generations that were buried there and realize that it wasn't really that long ago. It made me appreciate the family that I have come from and all that they did to promote freedom and the building of a great nation.


I think Emma's fascination for the cemetery has increased now. Today she was talking about how beautiful it was and the good feeling that was there. I know, strange, most people are creeped out by the cemetery but for us it was an amazing and sweet time. We walked around looking for those who served defending our country and found quite a few. Among them was someone with the name "HOLT" who died in France during 1918, I am supposing he was in WW I. I am anxious to see if I can find his family in my genealogy since I come from the Holt clan and had family move from the Salt Lake Valley to Canada during pioneer times. Emma walked around finding all the Emma's that she could and placing flowers on the graves. It was nice to honor those who have passed, we used to do that every year when I was a child and clean our families grave-stones who had already passed on. I am happy to be able to give a piece of that to our children even if it wasn't for our direct family members since we are so far away from that.