I have such warm dear memories of Boppo, my mother's father, when Memorial Day comes around. This was back when Michael and I were tiny things. Before a Dan or a Jeff. On a Sunday afternoon Boppo would arrive with buckets of peonies - white and magenta and the gorgeous mixed - and about a dozen wire coat hangers. He'd take them to the basement, Momma fretting quite vocally every year about ants, and start his task. He knew exactly how he wanted the hangers bent. He was shaping them to both bundle together the blossoms with one end and create at the other a stake with which he could drive them into the ground. You see, they were devotions. This was when Memorial Day meant a day to honor your lost loved ones. Does anyone use it for that anymore?
Monday, and with my folks away at the Indy 500, Mommo would dress Michael and me to the nines (tiny black trench coats I recall), we'd pack the peonies into the trunk, and begin the long journey of visiting Minnie, Mommo's mother and leaving peonies at her grave. Boppo's sister Pearl, who died just after the first world war. Uncle Benny. People I can't even recall. Of course Joann and Virginia. They were the two girls Mommo and Boppo lost in the thirties and forties. Mommo would cry and Boppo would hold her. I thought it was beautiful.
And it was. Then there would be the Frisch's Big Boy for breakfast or lunch.
So that is what Memorial Day means to me. My adored Boppo and peonies and Michael in a black trench coat. And an enormous outpouring of love.
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