Family Legends

In my family, Memorial Day weekend means it’s time to plant the annuals and wash the porch. It’s the traditional start of summer, when bicycles get pulled out of the garage and everyone tries to squeeze into last year’s bathing suit. Kids start dreaming in color again. On Memorial Day, several dozen members of my extended family gather at a park near my rural hometown in upstate New York to eat barbecued chicken and deviled eggs. Afterward we play softball while my Uncle Harvey limbers up his lawn chair. But for us the best thing about the holiday is the part that has become an afterthought for many people–the remembering.

We gather at the family plot in the ancient local cemetery to remember loved ones and hear about relatives we wish we had known. The grownups plant flowers and bicker over who does the weeding. Children five or under get buckets to haul water. The older kids wander off to check out the fancier monuments of our neighbors. When the work is done, we sit on the grass and talk about our family.

We read down the list of ancestors, going back to the Revolutionary War, whose names are etched on our granite memorial, and trade snippets of their lives. There is my great-uncle who, in mid-life, ran off with the circus. His sainted wife’s stone sits forlorn, wedged into the grass. We also celebrate the ordinariness of our ancestors–the soldiers, teachers, farmers and parents who spent purposeful lives in this little town. Our visit to the cemetery is where we work out our connection to these people, and to one another.

Psychologists stress the importance of ritual in binding families together, and Memorial Day presents a great opportunity. This year, if you’re driving to the beach, turn off the car radio and explain to your kids why everyone has the day off. On the way out of town, swing by the war memorial. Your kids may see it every day, but now you can explain what it is there for. Lucky to live in a time of relative peace, they need to be taught that we honor the sacrifice of others. Find out if there’s a parade nearby, the kind with high school marching bands, little kids with streamers on their bikes, and beribboned old veterans–the people for whom this day was created.

If you’re doing yard work over the holiday weekend, get your kids to help you plant an oak sapling or lilac bush in memory of a loved one or just to mark the day. Pull out a photo album or a box of old pictures. Then help your children sort out the names and faces of people they’ve never met but would probably have enjoyed. Tell them stories about their family, even if you can dredge up only dim memories or anecdotes–like the one about my mother, who once found an alligator in the kitchen eating out of the cat’s bowl. This is how they will learn that for better or worse, there is no family like theirs.

Teach your kids that Memorial Day isn’t just about Kool-Aid and Wiffle Balls. Before you stoke up the grill this year, raise a glass to the people who came before you–those who fought for our country or tended the home fires–and help your family celebrate its past.

E-mail Amy at timefamily@aol.com or write her at TIME, Suite 850, 1050 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., 20036