Sometimes monuments don’t seem to be monuments

From Shakespeare’s King Henry the Fifth: “Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.”

On Memorial Day, those who have sacrificed their lives in the service of our country shall be “freshly rememb’red.”

At graves of unknown soldiers, on ancient battlefi elds, in the silent homes of bereft families, in those who survived and came home, hearts will echo the emotions of King David at the deaths of King Saul and Prince Jonathan: “Your glory lies slain upon your high places. You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor bounteous fields. How the mighty have fallen in the midst of battle!”

Were they correct who said, “ Then shal l our names…Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red”?

Bishop Will Willimon tells of visiting the south of England. His car needed repairs. With time on his hands, he strolled toward the village church. The church included a cemetery of fifty graves of young soldiers from New Zealand, ages 17-25, all mostly buried in tall grass. And there in the midst of the graves was a large granite slab that read: “We shall never forget your sacrifice.”

Inquiring at the town’s library he asked, “Who were these men?”

No one knew. He asked some of the townsfolk: no one could recall. It was surmised they were stationed in England during WWI and were victims of the flu epidemic of 1918.

Willimon concludes: “The inscription was a lie. No one could remember their sacrifi ce.”

What is it we do remember on Memorial Day? Not names. Not forever. All names, soon or late, become “buried in tall grass.” What we do remember is that there are those for whom ideals, honor and loved ones are worth their very lives. For those who make that sacrifice, it is fitting that there should be monuments.

In 1991, an author by the name of Gary Paulsen wrote an award-winning book for youth entitled: The Monument” in which he suggests: Sometimes monuments don’t seem to be monuments but are, just the same.

After the battle of Waterloo women and children went around the battlefield with pliers pulling teeth from all the young men who had been killed—on both sides. Many people in France and England had bad teeth and needed false dentures. They used real teeth from dead people set in wood for false dentures. Those “Waterloo teeth,” as they were called, were a kind of monument.

Every time Waterloo teeth bit down on a piece of food, a soldier who had died was remembered. Sometimes monuments don’t seem to be monuments but are just the same.

During the Boer War in South Africa a platoon of forty British soldiers were caught in a small valley by vicious crossfire. They were all killed and the bodies were left where they lay.

They had just been issued their food, and each had been given a half a dozen peaches which the men kept in their knapsacks. As the bodies decomposed they became fertilizer and the peach pits took root, and now there is an orchard there, still today, of 40 peach trees.

It is said that the peaches from the orchard are the sweetest peaches in the world. Sometimes monuments don’t seem to be monuments but are just the same.

“Greater love has no one than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends” (John 15). Perhaps if our own lives echo this truth, it will suffice as a monument for those whose names we have forgotten. And that will be enough.