Celebrated in most states on the last Monday in May, Memorial Day is a time to remember the U.S. men and woman who lost their lives serving their country. Originally known as Decoration Day, it was established in 1868 to commemorate the dead from the Civil War. Over the years it came to serve as a day to remember all U.S. men and women killed or missing in action in all wars.

They shall grow not old
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them . .
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We will remember them.
Lawrence Binyon

Here are some ideas for observing Memorial Day at your house:

1. Visit the Arlington National Cemetery Website

2. A listing of National and State Veteran Cemetery Websites

3. Guidelines for Displaying the American Flag

4. Pictures and Instructions for Folding the Flag

5. The History of the Traditional Poppy Flower

6. The White House Commission on Remembrance

7. Free Memorial Day Email Greeting Cards

8. Memorial Day Graphics and Clip Art

9. The National Memorial Day Parade

Puzzles and Quizzes

10. Memorial Day Gathering - a puzzle of logic (warning…I love this type of puzzle and this is a tough one!)

11. American Flag Jigsaw Puzzle

12. Memorial Day Wordsearch

wishing a day filled with Peace for you and yours -
with love,

Grandmother Wren

1. What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
Helen Keller

2. Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
Rossiter W. Raymond

3. There is no such thing as death. In nature nothing dies. From each sad remnant of decay some forms of life arise.
Charles Mackay

4. To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.
Samuel Butler

5. Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life”

6. We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death.
David Sarnoff

7. As men, we are all equal in the presence of death
Publilius Syrus

8. When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.
Live you life in a manner so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.
Native American Proverb

9. Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated
Allphonse de Lamartine

10. Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys.
Alphonse de Lamartine

11. We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

12. I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
Gilda Radner

13. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

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