Memorial Day isn’t about the mattress sales or the extra day off. It’s not about cookouts or beach towels or the unofficial start of summer. It’s about silence. Sacred silence. The kind that falls heavy over rows of white headstones and ribbons pinned to empty sleeves. It’s the hush of a flag at half-staff. The reverent pause at 3 p.m. when a nation is asked to remember.

This day is about sacrifice, and not the kind we casually speak of when giving up sugar or staying up late. True sacrifice, the laying down of one’s life for the good of others, demands something holy from the rest of us: remembrance. Reverence. Gratitude that reaches deeper than words.

There are families who wake up every day with a folded flag in place of a loved one. A mother who still sets one less plate at the table. A child who only knows their father through stories and photographs. Their grief doesn’t get a holiday. Their pain doesn’t follow a calendar. But somehow, each year, they lend the weight of their loss to this day so the rest of us won’t forget.

And we shouldn’t.

Because freedom isn’t free. It never was. It came at the cost of youth and time, of dreams deferred and lives unfinished. It came through final letters written from war zones, last embraces on tarmacs, and prayers whispered by trembling hands. It came through people who believed that something greater was worth defending, even if it meant they wouldn’t come home.

On Memorial Day, we honor the names we know and the countless ones we never will. We stand in the shadow of their courage. We walk freely because they stood firm.

As a woman of faith, I can’t help but see the thread of divine love in their selflessness. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). That verse echoes across battlefields and into the hearts of every Gold Star family. It reminds us that freedom and grace often arrive the same way, unearned, undeserved, but given anyway.

So maybe it’s fitting that this weekend’s forecast is colder than usual. The chill in the air quiets the noise, slows the rush. Maybe, in the absence of perfect weather, we’ll find space for something deeper. Reflection. Reverence. A moment to consider the weight of sacrifice and the gift of freedom.

Maybe we’ll sit a little longer in the stillness. Maybe we’ll talk to our children about why flags line the roads and why Taps makes our throats tighten. Maybe we’ll bow our heads in the backyard and whisper a prayer for a mother who still mourns.

Because Memorial Day isn’t just about what we do. It’s about what we remember.

And may we never forget.