Memorial Day and Thinking About the Passage of Time

Today was Memorial Day here in the USA, celebrated as "Remembrance Day" in other parts of the world.

I had a few peaceful moments this afternoon, and found myself thinking about the inevitable passage of time.

It's hard to believe that when I was born, World War II had only been over for 15 years! Six years later, in 1966, it had been longer since "wartime" than the 21-year gap between WWI and WWII.

When I was little, most of my older relatives had lived through a World War; quite a few of the elderly ones had not only lived through two World Wars, but also through the Great Depression.

Sometimes, when people use the flip comment "First world problems!" to describe something they are worried about, I find myself thinking about some of the things my relatives here in the first world were worried about, way back when.

Time passes on by, and our memories slowly fade.

It will not be any years before there will be no more people on this planet who lived through World War II as an adult. You'd have to be almost 100 years old!

The thing I reflected on — and that worries me, sometimes — is that when "direct memory" of something dies with an older generation, that "something" becomes completely "theoretical" in the minds of younger generations, because they never had the first-hand experience.

When my Auntie died (at 94) back in 1998, a whole bunch of directly experienced history died with her. Now I just have old photographs, but not her actual storytelling.

I feel grateful that I actually had the foresight to write some of the stories on the back of those old B&W photos, so as to give them more context, in retrospect. Otherwise those neatly posed people would have become nameless.

My Auntie told stories of helping downed English pilots during WWII, when they would risk their lives to fly reconnaissance missions over Denmark to study German troop movements. In fact, they had one pilot living in the summerhouse basement for three weeks, until they could get word out to the RAF and he went back to England aboard a fishing trawler.

They ran an anti-occupation underground press in the basement of the family city house.

These are all ideas we could not even think about, today

So although I have no immediate relatives who lost their lives at war, I still spent some time today, reflecting on the many who went through wars, and were part of underground resistance efforts.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week ahead!

How about you? Do you have any family who gave their lives in wars? Any who are old enough to have lived through WWII? Do leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)
Created at 2023.05.30 00:06 PST
x577