On a day set aside to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, and for loved ones no longer with us, Memorial Day services were held at cemeteries near Elgin.
God’s gift of rain fell most of the morning and into the afternoon, but that didn’t deter families and friends alike from attending services first at Park Cemetery, then at West Cedar Valley/St. Boniface cemeteries.
Paige Ringhoff spoke first at Park Cemetery. She began her presentation by reciting a series of numbers which she said are meaningless without context.
“Today is the day set aside to give special remembrance to the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice during some of the most unsettled and violent periods of our nation’s past. Men and women who left the comfort of their everyday lives to fight for something greater than themselves,” she said.
The cost, she said, of military actions the U.S. has been involved in since our country’s birth can be counted in so many ways. “Numbers and statistics are thrown at us, but they have little meaning other than notations on a chart or a line in a newspaper article … Each of those numbers (previously stated) was a person. A friend, a neighbor, father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, aunt, uncle. Someone cherished and loved by a family and community. Someone whose loss has left a void in the lives of others,” referencing the number of Americans who have died in our nation’s conflicts.
She spoke of seeing the traveling Vietnam Wall several years ago at the Elgin Q125 celebration. Emotion gripped her words as she spoke of seeking a single name, a cousin she had never met who was killed in action before she was even born.
….see more at this week’s Elgin Review.
