Memorial Day: In Memoriam

Today is Memorial Day. This is not an obvious statement from my perspective, as there are no reminders here of the holiday back home. It is a challenge when abroad to observe holidays particular to the U.S. (like Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, and MLK Day) that honor values intrinsic to my identity as an American. But the extra effort required to mark these days, with other expats or in solitary reflection, can make them all the more meaningful.

I am especially moved this Memorial Day, stuck on the other side of the world from my family, because my most beloved veteran - my grandmother Pearl - passed away last Friday. She was 97 years old.

I am and always have been greatly inspired by my grandmother and her life story. I hope my family will not mind if I share some of the reasons why.

My grandmother was born in Colorado in 1914 to a large but poor family. As a teenager, she was a ward of the state, at times in an orphanage and at other times as a foster child on struggling farms at the dawn of the Great Depression. At one point years behind in her primary education, and without any family support I know of, my grandmother nevertheless graduated from high school - and talked the head of the orphanage into giving her a personal loan so she could attend nursing school. (She later paid the loan back in its entirety.)

Pearl spent her first years as a nurse in San Francisco, but during the war was stationed as a lieutenant-nurse in England. There she met her future husband, an engineer for the Army who was the son of Polish immigrants. As with her early years in Colorado, my grandmother understandably did not like to talk about her experiences during the war.

After the war, my grandparents settled first in upstate New York and then (because that wasn't cold enough) on the border between Minnesota and Canada. In the mid-1950s, however, my grandfather abandoned my grandmother to raise four children on her own. My grandmother's reaction? To go back to school for an anesthesiology certificate. A difficult gamble, but one that seems to have paid off. For work opportunities, Pearl first moved her family to South Dakota and then to Tulare, California. This latter move was yet another stroke of brilliance by my grandmother, as it allowed her children to attend the University of California with in-state tuition (back at a time when in-state tuition meant something).

With her kids grown up and starting lives of their own, Pearl moved first to Nevada and then settled in Portland to be near her elder daughter. During the second half of her adult life, my grandmother pursued her curiosity - maxing out available classes at the local community college - and her love of nature. In her 70s, my grandmother hiked around the base of Mt. Hood (granted, in installments); until her last days, she kept her binoculars and Audubon bird books on her coffee table. But a special place in her heart was reserved for the high desert of the American West - I believe because of the deep connection she felt to the land as a child in Colorado.

Fortitude, sacrifice, the value of education, the embrace of curiosity, and an endless ability to feel joy in the beauty of nature - this is my inheritance.

My grandmother lived independently until the age of 96. She has four extraordinary children (imho) and four grandchildren (I think we're pretty decent, too); her first great-grandchild was born last October. I hope if I ever have children, I will be able to instill in them - as my mom did in me - Pearl's strength (impossible to underestimate), her curiosity (also seemingly limitless), and her spiritual connection with nature. And I hope for myself that I will be able to live up to Pearl's example of service to others, in work and at home.

Speaking of service and sacrifice, I also remember the service of all those who have defended our country, and particularly those who have sacrificed their bodies and lives in current conflicts around the globe. I think of their families, as I think of mine, and I pray for peace.

The world is charged with the grandeur of god.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins,