Who are our dead? Are they a subset of ‘the dead’? Are they a going concern, or just a past with whose echo we must contend? Are there obligations that linger between us, the living, and them, the dead? Do those obligations flow in two directions, or in one? Do these answers inform our approach to our own deaths, or the deaths of those we love? What role does memory, after which this Memorial holiday is named, play in all this? Are some dead more or less worthy of remembrance? Is the blood that soaks a cause a measure of it’s importance, or its prestige, or maybe our own ungrieved regrets?
Who are our dead? Are they a subset of ‘the dead’? Are they a going concern, or just a past with whose echo we must contend? Are there obligations that linger between us, the living, and them, the dead? Do those obligations flow in two directions, or in one? Do these answers inform our approach to our own deaths, or the deaths of those we love? What role does memory, after which this Memorial holiday is named, play in all this? Are some dead more or less worthy of remembrance? Is the blood that soaks a cause a measure of it’s importance, or its prestige, or maybe our own ungrieved regrets?