Memorial Day is coming. Are you ready?

I usually work Memorial Day, but we always take time to go to the cemetery and put flowers on family graves.

Over the last year I have gone pretty crazy with the family history stuff, and I found several dozen people who are my direct ancestors at our cemetery. One of my plans this Memorial Day is to take my children on a bit of a family history tour around the cemetery, and introduce them to a few of the people who made it so they could be here.

This actually isn't so hard once you have the information available. I took a map of the cemetery and put a highlight mark where each of the markers are, and it pretty much routs itself. The thing that is fun for the kids is having stories about these people. I am amazed at how much information is available about even mundane things about these people, and I want my children to know what sacrifices were made so they could live the cushy, techno-centric, freedom-loving life they enjoy.

Has it taken some time to pull it together? Sure it has. But the ability to give my children a sense of their place in history is well worth it.

So take some time and prepare for this Memorial Day. Don't just throw flowers at blocks in the ground. Make them real people so we really do remember them. Isn't that what Memorial Day is supposed to be?