Grand Marais Memorial Service:
Overcast gray skies and cool temperatures have not stopped people from gathering on the courthouse lawn. Theatmosphere is quiet; some talk and laughter but there is nothing raucous about the occasion.
We are here to honor the men and women who have lost their lives serving our country.
Approximately 150 people encircle the lawn with its monument and flags. Some are in wheelchairs. Others, perhaps due to health reasons or frailty, sit in cars parked nearby. The rest of us stand behind the perpendicular rows of the Veteran Honor Guard, the Women’s Auxiliary and the Flag Bearers.
Flags, representing each armed force branch, flap in the strengthening breeze as eleven o’clock approaches.
The ceremony begins with a prayer and the singing of the national anthem as an American flag is raised, then lowered to half mast.
There is a short speech. The name of this past year’s deceased veterans is read and accompanied by a bell toll. Two Ladies Auxiliary members place a wreath before the large granite monument dedicated to those “who serve our country in war and peace.”
The honor guard presents a military salute. We are asked to maintain a moment of silence, and then the hauntingly beautiful notes of “Taps” float into the air and out over Lake Superior.
When I leave, I feel saddened, yet somehow uplifted.
Maple Hill Cemetery:
The Maple Hill Cemetery is small and beautiful. Three or so miles up the Gunflint Trail, at the top of a small county road, its tiny steepled church nestles on a small knoll with wild strawberries growing in its grass and yellow wildflowers, birch and spruce adorning its grassy edges.
I know this cemetery well; lived nearby, picked June berries on the hill above it and tried to comfort grieving friends as they buried their dead here. My own family plot lies 600 miles to the southwest, and I can’t be there today, so I have come here to remember my loved ones.
I walk carefully among the headstones, recognizing names, remembering people from long ago. Thinking of the past brings a reminiscence of my aunts, uncles and parents so vivid that, for a brief moment, they all live in a bright shiny childhood memory. They fade and I’m back on Maple Hill again.
Peace and quiet suffuse the air. I have been alone but now a car slowly approaches and stops in another cemetery section. A family gets out and gathers near a headstone.
Respecting their privacy, I move to a far corner and inspect a display of vivid daffodils. I see that violets have spilled from the adjacent forest floor and grow among the headstones in tiny purple bursts. I note the many flags placed at veteran’s grave sites.
The family leaves, but another car approaches, stops and its occupants gather around a headstone. And so it goes for the half hour I am here. People arrive, spend time at a headstone, then quietly leave.
I get in my car and drive away, leaving them with their loved ones.
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