Happy Memorial Day! This is my first one back in the States in 3 years – unreal. I’m pretty excited to go and visit the graves that I haven’t seen in so long. I have fond memories of going every year to different cemeteries, sometimes having to drive an hour and a half – the redeeming quality of it was throwing the football or frisbee with my dad and sisters (doing our best to dodge the graves), and playing with whichever cousin was a baby at the time. Now those things are not as necessary to a good cemetery visit, but they still aid in the appeal.
This is a perfect time for reflection – indeed, it’s good that we have holidays in the year dedicated to reflection of certain things or events, but it’s also bad if we leave all remembrance for that day and that day alone. I’m sad to admit that I don’t spend much time thinking about my deceased ancestors, except when I do Family History work or put flowers on their graves once or twice a year. I believe we would do well to remember them more often than that.
My mission encouraged me to think more about those who have gone before. I would meet many people who claimed to not believe in God, or at the very least didn’t care about matters of spirituality or the afterlife. I wondered where this tradition came from – I, for many of those people, was fairly certain that it was not passed down from their great grandparents all the way to them. I’m confident that all of our family trees contain religious people of some sort, or who are at least God-fearing in some way, and that they are not too far distant from us.
Would they, then, be disappointed in their descendants who reject that belief?
That’s a hard question. People have freedom to choose, and many choose to follow a different path than their ancestors. For some it’s a decision to reject a path altogether and live a carnal existence, while for others they simply choose another religious path, but for both they are not doing what the generation did before them. They are forging a new branch to the path that their ancestors set, in a way. What feelings might that engender in our ancestors?
You know what, I’m convinced that not only is it difficult to know, but that it’s different for every ancestor, every descendant, and every situation. However, I’m likewise convinced of one universal pattern:
Ancestors love their descendants.
There’s something to be said about the sacrifice that people make for their posterity, whether they meet their posterity or not. People have a natural desire to work hard and provide a life for their children that is “better than theirs”. Thus, an extension of that goal would be to indirectly provide a life for their posterity 6 generations down that is 6x better than theirs – or something like that.
Learning of the sacrifices of our ancestors can and should create a feeling of not only gratitude, but a desire to act and be better, a desire to as Elder Bednar said not be “the weak link in our family chain”.
This is a feeling that I felt when I watched the movie version of Les Miserables a few nights ago. Anyone that’s seen the play knows that there’s a lot of great music, accompanied by a lot of death. In fact, two of the only characters left alive by the end are Cosette and Marius – they seem to get a happy ending, featuring a marriage, while almost all of their friends and family die. What I noticed is that those friends and family more often than not died for THEM.
Fantine, the angel mother, died of sickness while trying to raise money for her daughter Cosette that she couldn’t even be with. Jean Valjean, the foster father and savior, took Cosette into his care, raised her, AND risked his life and sacrificed much of his strength in saving Marius, the man Cosette loved. And Eponine, the faithful friend, took a bullet to save Marius, the man she loved one-sidedly.
All of those characters contributed in a major way to who Cosette and Marius were. Anyone who makes it the end of the play thus had every right to shout, “if either of you EVER forget what these people did for you…”. They then not only have life given to them by these people, but have the responsibility to live for them, to make something meaningful out of their lives. And, they have the equally-important responsibility to pass that life on to their posterity and share the stories of Fantine, Eponine and Jean Valjean.
Wow, what a great responsibility! Indeed, it’s an overwhelming one to some degree.
How can one young couple bear it?
I learned yet another lesson from a movie earlier this week – Call of the Wild. It’s a heartwarming movie about Han Solo (aka Harrison Ford) befriending a dog that is trying to find himself. Classic. It’s a movie with a Disney-esque lesson to it that I, as always, found quaint and applicable. At one point in the movie, the dog is struggling to fulfill his destiny, but Han Solo reassures the dog with his faith in him, teaching the audience something like this:
“Someone’s belief in you qualifies you for greatness; it’s often the only requirement.”
Somehow, someone’s love for and belief in you – be it a mother’s, father’s, friend’s, teacher’s, mentor’s, etc. – is what makes you great. If that love and belief in you is constant, then so long as you live a true, virtuous life, remembering and honoring those that love and believe in you, you will be great. You ARE great! That is, in this case, the only requirement.
The love and belief of Fantine, Eponine, Jean Valjean, and more was solidified and immortalized by their ultimate sacrifice – their death. Cosette and Marius, no matter how much money they make, how talented they are, or what mark they leave on the world, will be great if they honor them and do good to others and to their posterity. THAT is, in their case, the mark of greatness.
We have all been touched by our ancestors, some directly, others indirectly. In both cases, in all cases, we have the duty not only to remember them but to live a noble life. That’s not to say we have to do what our ancestors did or follow their path, but we should live a life that does its best to honor their lives. That life will be different for everyone, but I’m confident that if we remember our ancestors, it will be a life that is better than if we didn’t.
And for all of us, equally and specifically, we must look to one person whose love and belief in us is infinitely solidified – even engraven upon His palms (Isaiah 49:16). Jesus Christ
believed in our greatness. He KNOWS our greatness – if not so, He would not have done what He did. His sacrifice is one that must take root in our souls and lift us to a higher plane. As we look to our ancestors and they look to us, and then we look down to our descendants and they look to us, we must all remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, He who made all of it possible.
In Australia and New Zealand, ANZAC Day is celebrated on April 25. It’s a day dedicated to celebrating those who fought in World War I. The motto of that day is:
Let us never forget what our ancestors have done for us.
Let us remember that their lives are the reason we are alive today.
Let us remember that they have prayed for us – if not while they were alive, they certainly pray for us now.
Let us remember that they believed in our greatness.
Let us remember that our duty is now to our posterity, as theirs was to us.
Let us remember that at the center of it all is Jesus Christ.
Lest we forget.
Adam Simpson
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