The 21st century comes with a lot of change. And all change means loss. As human beings we often don’t want to deal with loss or recognize the suffering that went into the joy of the moment (the shattered glass in the midst of the Jewish wedding ceremony). Our aversion to loss is about two times stronger than our desire for reward. To bring stories of loss and acknowledge potential loss in negotiations of progress weakens our resolve. Can’t we just avoid it? Often, we do.
Memorial Day is an opportunity, a day to remember what has been lost and a day to teach our young people a healthy way to deal with grief. It is an important moment to see to that 21st century skill of emotional intelligence. I’ve come to understand that mourning loss is a skill we desperately need in the 21st century. It is a skill to negotiate change, and the loss inherent in all change. It is hard to recall, only centuries ago, when most children were born into large families and stayed within the confines of the same village with the same jobs for their entire lives. Our children are facing multiple jobs, multiple homes, multiple family arrangements, and changes that make industry, technology, and infrastructure obsolete in years, not centuries or decades.
This skill of mourning a loss is at the root of many emotional intelligence traits. Even delaying gratification includes mourning the immediate gratification that we are sacrificing. Saving money requires the sacrifice of spending cash. Empathy and compassion require the loss of selfish desires. This is not a new theme in human striving. All great faith traditions give you tools to deal with the pain of loss, not merely the daily mini-losses, but also the absurd, the tragic, and the unjust.
The dilemma of change is ever present: how do we live a compassionate life when we are fully aware of the tremendous cost, the loss, the horror and blood inherent in all life? It is an irony we grasp as we move through adolescence, the paradox of death being part of all growth. We must lose our childhood to enter adolescence. We lose the security of dependence as we move out to become independent in the world. We lose our single life when we marry. We lose many moments of intimate absorption with our spouse when children enter the picture. We lose every other possibility of the moment when each finite second of life passes focused on only one thing.
Memorial Day is one way to teach our children healthy ways to deal with loss. Regularly scheduled memorials are important part of mourning. Memories fade and we grow frightened that what is a central part of our decision making will be forgotten. Guilt plays a role. Anger or profound sadness can rise like bile from those who experienced a loss yet do not have a schedule that memorializes that loss (a schedule shared by others that support them).
How do you remember what is lost? Our scout troop does the flag raising at the Borough Memorial Day celebration. A high school band may play in a parade. It is a day to visit cemeteries and care for loved ones memorial sites or take part in revitalizing the graves of those whose families are no longer near. In our home, we’ve created photo slideshows of what we mourn and scheduled them as screen savers on anniversary dates to play in the living room for the day. I have noticed that Facebook memes have become a memorial of sorts, appearing on anniversary dates of tragedies and individual deaths.
The important part of a memorial anniversary is that it ends. You walk through the Holocaust remembrance museum once a year, to keep it in mind and let it wash over your decisions and stance toward the future. You walk out into the sunshine of Washington D.C. resolved to work politically and personally toward ending genocides that continue today.
Prayer is (among many other things) a memorial recalling the qualities of the divine proclaimed in revelations that we seek to bring into the present.
Read more about the teaching our kids to mourn loss and other 21st century skills in 21st Century Parenting: Grow a Generation.
Enjoy your Memorial Day!
