I'm not going anywhere near a cemetery on Memorial Day

If it's all the same to you, I'm going on a picnic this Memorial Day with two of my grandkids, my lovely wife, our beautiful children.

We're going up to Ogden Valley. When we're done we'll come back and go on a family bike ride. The weather should be ideal, the kids will laugh and play, as will the adults.

I'm not going anywhere near a cemetery. Won't even walk the dog through one. My parents' grave will go undecorated, at least by me.

This apparently is wrong.

I think it's nice that soldiers decorate graves of veterans on Memorial Day. The holiday has Civil War roots and is a fine tradition.

But judging by the posts I see on Social Media, that's not good enough.  I'm supposed to spend Memorial Day buying flowers to decorate the graves of my parents, who are the only immediate dead I have to deal with.

I'm supposed to spend the day remembering the dead, either soldiers or family, and being happy is frowned upon.

The posts  started last week and continue. Their number and intensity borders on nagging, and not in a nice way. It smacks of political correctness, of thought police even.What am I supposed to think of posts that say "Some soldier died for your BBQ"?

So far it's only my parents I'm seemingly ignoring on Memorial Day. More family dead will come, and when they do I'll deal with them the same way I do with my parents. If that dead is me, I want my kids to treat me the same way.

Which, to all appearances, is pretty negligent.

I get to my parents' grave, maybe, once every three or four years, and then only if I'm passing by and have time. They're in SLC, the cemetery is out of the way.

Sounds pretty cold, eh? Won't go out of the way to visit his mother's grave, even on Memorial Day.

It was interesting. When mom died 13 years ago, my sister and I were walking away from the grave and neither of us had a strong urge to go back up and spend some more time. 

"She's not there," my sister said, and she's right. Mom's still not there. Dad neither. Dead bodies are called "remains" for a reason.

Here's the thing. I don't need to buy some mums at the grocery store and let them die in a cemetery to know that I loved my parents and miss them. If I fail to fulfill someone else's expectations about how I should be showing my filial devotion, that's not my problem.

I think about my folks all the time.

Every time I wash the dishes I think about Mom. I inherited her dish drainer. It's an aluminum tray and stainless steel rack, probably almost as old as I am, but still able to hold dishes up to the air. It is impossible to look at it doing its job without thinking of where it came from.

We use mom's dishes. After mom died Carla said she only wanted one thing -- Mom's everyday dishes, lovely stoneware. "It will be like having dinner with her every day" she said at the time, and it is.

I broke one of them a few years ago. "It's all right," I heard my wife say from another room. "No, it's not," I said, and moved heaven and earth to buy a replacement.

I have my mom's fountain pen, which she used to write dozens of letters to my dad when the two of them were separated by work or events. I'm tempted to get it fixed and use it, but the nib is worn to mom's hand, it would never work for me. It sits on my desk. Every time I touch it, that's Mom.

I cook my Mom's recipes. I pick the rhubarb I stole from Mom's garden and planted in mine.

Dad is in and of me. I got his watch, his camera, his appreciation of funny poetry, his wry/sardonic sense of humor, his difficulty dealing with authority. I've got one of his bow ties I intend to learn how to tie one of these days. Dad taught me photography, gave me my first camera.

He gave me advice on many things that I use to this day. When I tell my children, "As my old pappy used to say ..." it really is something dad used to say. I got a whole column out of his sayings one year.

But still, you say, why not one day a year at the cemetery? Why use the day partying, or BBQing or bike riding? It's unseemly!

My parents didn't get lot of time with their grandchildren. By the time a couple came along Dad was sick and old beyond his years. Mom had to take care of him and grew increasing distrustful of leaving the house.  We didn't get to their home way down in Holiday as much as we'd have liked to. Busy lives, inconvenient distances, it happens.

Now they're gone.

Memorial Day is one of the few weekends that my kids have the day off and can come over and play with their children, my grandchildren, for the day. A whole day with them is a gift, a blessing.

And you want me to spend it in a cemetery?

So before you post one of those "Remember Why We Have Memorial Day!" things, ponder this:

Nobody knows the heart. You can't read what's going through someone's mind, how they think or feel, what tears at them or makes them ponder, what they've gone through, what inner sorrows they have.

And you have no business telling them how they should remember their dead, or any dead.

I think about, remember, and mourn my parents every day. Memorial Day is a day I can play with the living, so I'm going to.

If that makes me a bad person, fine.