Memorial Day

I love Memorial Day.  I love the version of Memorial Day that my family celebrates.  I was an adult when I realized most people consider the holiday to be about veterans and people who died fighting for our country.  I honor those people also, but in our family Memorial Day was always more of a Die de Muertos where we visit cemeteries and talk about and honor our kindred dead.  It helps that it is super convenient because in four cemeteries that are all really close together, we can visit Dahls, Jaynes, Woods, Riches, Egberts, Gardners, Atwoods, Batemans, Yorgasons, Dowdings, Van Tassels, on and on and on.

At every headstone, my sisters and I would declare who it was and how we were related and my mom or grandma would clear up any misconceptions or confusions we had.  We took the obligatory family group shot at my grandpa's grave, but I don't have a copy of that one.

I do have this picture with these lovely ladies.  We are the ones who resemble Ellen Yorgason Dahl on the Family Search feature of Compare a Face.  I am proud to be in the company of these women.

Marianne, Emma, me and Liliana

Here's the quintessential photo of the cannon at the Murray Cemetery.  We have pictures of kids by this thing for decades.

This is the sadly overgrown house where my Grandpa Jaynes was raised.  My great grandpa (his dad) was raised there too.)

This is my dad photo bombing my picture of the house where my grandpa was raised.

Hyrum, Robert, Adam, Braeden and Morgan

This is what our menfolk do for moral support when confronted with being married to/the son of a Dahl sister.  They were all coincidentally lying the exact same way.

Here's a group of us (I'm wearing Mark's flannel shirt because I got cold and he gave me the shirt off his back) in front of the rock church by the West Jordan cemetery that some of our family members help build.

Here's one of about 30 selfies Mark took with my phone when I asked him to take a picture of us in front of the rock church.

It was a spectacular day.  I love family traditions and spending the day with my sisters and parents and grandma and a few aunts and uncles.  It is wonderful to feel connected, to be part of something bigger than myself.  I am grateful for all my ancestors who lived in the Salt Lake valley and worked hard and stayed faithful and created strong families to root me.

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers.

Malachi 4:6