Keeping safe while reconnecting

Here we are at Memorial Day weekend once again, which elicits such a range of emotions and memories at all times, but especially after two years of the effects of a global pandemic. Traditionally it has been the time we honor those fallen in service to their country, and also usher in the activities of summertime through town gatherings, including solemn ceremonies and celebratory parades.

Those gatherings were largely solitary in 2020, with veterans honoring their fallen brothers and sisters in the early morning hours with wreaths and words of remembrance. Then, last year, there was more inclination to try to have outdoor events commemorating the day. The weather gave some challenges to those who planned them, however. This year, finally, each town in the Northwest Corner has some public gathering in the works, whether it be a parade or a simpler ceremony at a town war memorial. See the listing of events for each town in this issue of The Lakeville Journal.

The solemnity of Memorial Day is not diminished by having residents of each town come together to honor their fallen. Rather, it becomes a shared experience with profound meaning. Those who come out for the day also find out what the winter has wrought in bringing change to their community: Who has survived and who has not, who remains to take part in the ceremonies and events, what families have new babies who will soon be marching with the school and civic groups in the parades, who has left the area and who has moved into it.

Especially now, after a couple of years of COVID, those changes are significant and give a benchmark to all who live here to understand their towns more fully.

Use the opportunity of Memorial Day to attend your town’s ceremonies. While there are renewed concerns about the continued spread of omicron and other variants of the coronavirus, these outdoor events should be among the safest one can experience now. If any of us feel safer remaining masked as we venture out this summer, indoors or outdoors, let’s all agree there should be no negative judgments made because of that. We cannot know the challenges every person now has or has had during the pandemic and should only support one another in coping with their aftermath and current repercussions.

In that deaths from COVID-19 and its variants have exceeded a million in the United States now, we should take notice and think about the number of families, other loved ones and coworkers affected by that much loss. We certainly could not have been surprised by the passing of that almost incomprehensibly large number of deaths, in that we were given updates regularly on the incremental loss over the months and years. But it still comes as a shock in some ways as society is trying to move forward, past the decimation of the pandemic through death, illness and long term COVID still affecting so many around us, if not us.

We should be able to take part in Memorial Day ceremonies and events safely, and move on to many more gatherings this summer, as long as we are compassionate with one other, and equally aware of our own needs in feeling comfortable as we do so.