Perpetual Change

Victory Day

So who of you know that May 9th is Victory Day, the end of WWII? Ok, and who of those celebrated it? I would venture to guess that except for a few history buffs, at least in my generation, the day probably went unnoticed. I certainly had never noticed it before. But one of the first things that struck me in Ukraine were the memorials to WWII, or the Great Patriotic War as it is referred to here. On May 9th, those memorials came alive all over the country. What was most moving about it, at least to me, wasn’t the traditional dancers, or the town orchestra, or the school pageants, or even the speeches from men so decorated that I thought their lapels might pull them over, but the crowds.

They say that not one family did not pay a price during the war, and all those families came to remember their dead today. And the most amazing part was the weather. It was cold and windy with hard rain. But there was a sea of umbrellas, and they stayed for the whole thing. I had a hard time imagining that the same number of us would come out for ANY event in any weather in the States. In my town of 20,000, I would think there must have been at least 500; and that first figure includes some surrounding villages which all had their own parades and pageants. And when the families went forward with their beautiful baskets of homegrown flowers, I wanted to cry. It was so moving.

As Americans, I think we are both blessed and cursed that we have not witnessed a war on our own soil since our own civil war. I think most of us can not even imagine what a war would be like, or what WWII meant to these people. I am thankful for that, but sometimes I fear it would take such an event at home for us to realize this blessing.

posted by jjs @ 2:37 PM