Memorial Day

Today, we honor all members of our armed forces who’ve given their lives to defend freedom and country. This day is a holiday for many employers and employees, but it should also be regarded as sacred. 

In 1864, a year or so before public recognition of what we now call Memorial Day, Abraham Lincoln tried to put in words the overwhelming loss experienced by the families of our war dead. He wrote the following letter to a Massachusetts widow, Lydia Bixby, who had lost five sons in the Civil War:

“Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Masssachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously in the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln.”