"The Last Decoration" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
"With a heart filled with compassion, I rely on Truth. In peace and grace, I know this to be true.”
~Rev. Tina May Wilding
The wind came off Stillwater Gleam in long gray sighs, bending the pines and rattling the fresh maple leaves like distant applause. Saturday morning had arrived cold and overcast, the kind of May morning that belonged more to remembrance than celebration.
The cemetery on the hill above Lone Pine still carried traces of dawn. Beads of rain clung to granite stones. Robins hopped silently through the wet grass. Somewhere below, in the village, the Bean & Birch had just opened its doors, and the smell of coffee and cinnamon rolls drifted faintly upward on the wind.
Sam parked his old pickup near the iron gate and shut off the engine.
Beside him sat a cardboard box filled with red paper poppies.
For thirty-three years he had made this same journey on the Saturday before Memorial Day.
He climbed out slowly, favoring the stiffness in his left knee—a souvenir from another country, another lifetime—and nodded to Liam, who stood nearby with Mabel sitting faithfully at his side.
“You want company?” Liam asked quietly.
Sam gave a small shrug. “Some roads a man walks alone.”
Liam understood. He tipped his head and stayed behind.
Farther down the hill, Ethan appeared with Bear bounding ahead through the damp grass while Isabel rode in her ridiculous front pack like a tiny queen surveying her kingdom. Above them, Ragnhilde circled once in the heavy sky before settling in the bare branches of a cedar tree.
Even here, life continued.
Sam carried the box carefully between the rows of stones.
He stopped first at the oldest marker.
JACOB MILLER
1968–1991
Sam knelt with effort and tucked a poppy beneath the small bronze flag holder.
“Well, Jake,” he murmured. “Another year.”
Wind stirred the grass around him.
Then another grave.
And another.
Some he had known only briefly. Others had once been boys who laughed too loudly, drank too much, and believed themselves immortal beneath foreign stars.
Now they rested beneath Wisconsin skies.
At the far edge of the cemetery stood a black granite stone beneath a blooming lilac bush.
THOMAS REILLY
1967–1991
Sam stopped walking.
A woman stood there already.
She wore a dark green jacket against the cold and held a bouquet of white carnations tightly in both hands. Early forties perhaps. Dark hair touched with silver at the temples.
Claire Reilly.
Tommy’s daughter.
Sam had not seen her in nearly twenty years.
She turned at the sound of his boots in the gravel.
For a long moment neither spoke.
Then her eyes dropped to the poppy in his hand.
“You still doing this?” she asked.
Her voice carried no warmth.
Sam nodded once. “Every year.”
She looked back at the grave.
“He hated poppies.”
The words struck harder than Sam expected.
“He told me once they made war look poetic.” Her jaw tightened. “Like sacrifice was somehow beautiful.”
Sam stood very still.
“He didn’t die for poetry,” Claire continued. “He died because politicians sent boys into hell.”
The wind gusted hard through the lilacs.
Below the hill, the church bell in Lone Pine struck nine slow notes.
Sam looked down at the grave marker.
“Your father saved my life,” he said softly.
Claire crossed her arms.
“And who saved his?”
The question hung in the cold air between them.
Sam swallowed.
There were no answers left after all these years. Only ghosts.
“He talked about you constantly after he came home,” Claire said suddenly. “You were his brother. Then after he died...” She shook her head. “You disappeared.”
Sam’s face tightened.
Because it was true.
“I didn’t know how to come around,” he admitted. “Every time I looked at you or your mother, all I could think was...it should’ve been me instead.”
Claire stared at him.
The anger in her face wavered.
Above them, Ragnhilde gave a low croaking call from the cedar tree.
Sam knelt slowly before the grave.
His weathered fingers placed the red poppy carefully at the base of the stone.
“I don’t honor war,” he said quietly. “God knows I don’t. I honor him. The boy who stole peaches from orchards. The idiot who danced terribly. The man who carried me three miles after the blast because he refused to leave me behind.”
Claire’s eyes filled unexpectedly.
For a long moment she said nothing.
Then, almost shyly, she crouched beside him and adjusted one of the carnations where the wind had toppled it.
“When I was little,” she whispered, “Mom used to bring me here on Decoration Day. She said people used to clean the graves and leave flowers because memory was a form of love.”
Sam smiled faintly.
“Your mother was right.”
The clouds shifted then, just enough for a pale shaft of sunlight to spill briefly across the cemetery hill.
The lilac blossoms stirred.
And for one impossible heartbeat, the place did not feel heavy with death at all.
It felt full.
Full of names.
Full of memory.
Full of love that had refused to vanish.
Down below, Ethan waved from the cemetery gate while Bear barked joyfully at absolutely nothing. Isabel looked deeply unimpressed. Liam stood with a steaming cup of coffee he'd brought up from Bean & Birch, and Martha and Toby were just arriving with small bundles of fresh-cut spring flowers from the market.
Life continued.
As it always had.
As it always must.
Claire stood and brushed rainwater from her jeans.
“Coffee?” Sam asked awkwardly.
For the first time that morning, she smiled.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think Dad would’ve liked that.”
And together they walked down the hill toward the village of Lone Pine while the wind moved gently through the stones behind them like the whisper of remembered voices.
* * * * * * * * * *
This morning the world outside my wee cottage feels suspended between seasons and between emotions.
The sky is gray. The wind restless.
I sit quietly with a steaming mug of coffee while Joshua Bell’s violin sings Song to the Moon through the room with such aching beauty that it feels less like music and more like prayer.
Outside the window, the begonias and coleus I potted yesterday sway gently on the deck railing. Their colors are understated on this cloudy morning—deep burgundy, soft green, flashes of red and pink—but they glow nonetheless. Small defiances against darkness.
And perhaps that is what this Saturday of Memorial Day weekend has always been.
A quiet bridge.
A threshold between mourning and summer.
Between memory and continuation.
Long before cookouts and crowded lakes and the first unofficial days of summer, this holiday was called Decoration Day. Communities gathered quietly in cemeteries carrying spring flowers in weathered hands. Graves were cleaned. Flags placed carefully into the earth. Names spoken aloud so they would not disappear into silence.
Memory itself became an act of love.
And here this morning, I find myself reflecting not only upon those who died defending ideals greater than themselves, but also upon the uneasy ache so many of us feel as we look at the world around us now.
There are moments lately when my heart breaks at what I see—violence, cruelty, corruption, division, the endless machinery of anger and fear. I wonder sometimes what those young soldiers lying beneath white stones would think of the nation they left behind.
And yet…
As the violin continues its haunting song, I think about something I read yesterday that touched my soul deeply:
“Living in a state of Grace is simply living in harmony with our highest awareness, living a life that is an outward expression of oneness.”
Perhaps that is the answer for these troubled times.
Not surrender.
Not blindness.
But grace.
Not a passive grace that ignores suffering, but an active grace that refuses to become consumed by hatred while confronting it. A grace that insists compassion matters. Truth matters. Kindness matters. Democracy matters. Human dignity matters.
A grace that remembers we belong to one another.
This morning I realize that Memorial Day asks something sacred of us.
Not merely remembrance of the dead.
But responsibility among the living.
To become worthy of the sacrifices made before us.
To live not in bitterness, but in courage.
Not in despair, but in conscious compassion.
Not in fear, but in the stubborn belief that even in dark times, the human spirit can still choose decency, mercy, and love.
Outside my window, the wind moves through the pines.
The flowers tremble gently.
The coffee grows cooler beside my hands.
And somewhere deep within the music, within the gray morning itself, I feel the quiet truth of it:
Grace is not the absence of sorrow.
Grace is carrying sorrow tenderly while still choosing to love the world.
And perhaps that is how we honor the fallen best of all.
~Wylddane
~Rev. Tina May Wilding
The wind came off Stillwater Gleam in long gray sighs, bending the pines and rattling the fresh maple leaves like distant applause. Saturday morning had arrived cold and overcast, the kind of May morning that belonged more to remembrance than celebration.
The cemetery on the hill above Lone Pine still carried traces of dawn. Beads of rain clung to granite stones. Robins hopped silently through the wet grass. Somewhere below, in the village, the Bean & Birch had just opened its doors, and the smell of coffee and cinnamon rolls drifted faintly upward on the wind.
Sam parked his old pickup near the iron gate and shut off the engine.
Beside him sat a cardboard box filled with red paper poppies.
For thirty-three years he had made this same journey on the Saturday before Memorial Day.
He climbed out slowly, favoring the stiffness in his left knee—a souvenir from another country, another lifetime—and nodded to Liam, who stood nearby with Mabel sitting faithfully at his side.
“You want company?” Liam asked quietly.
Sam gave a small shrug. “Some roads a man walks alone.”
Liam understood. He tipped his head and stayed behind.
Farther down the hill, Ethan appeared with Bear bounding ahead through the damp grass while Isabel rode in her ridiculous front pack like a tiny queen surveying her kingdom. Above them, Ragnhilde circled once in the heavy sky before settling in the bare branches of a cedar tree.
Even here, life continued.
Sam carried the box carefully between the rows of stones.
He stopped first at the oldest marker.
JACOB MILLER
1968–1991
Sam knelt with effort and tucked a poppy beneath the small bronze flag holder.
“Well, Jake,” he murmured. “Another year.”
Wind stirred the grass around him.
Then another grave.
And another.
Some he had known only briefly. Others had once been boys who laughed too loudly, drank too much, and believed themselves immortal beneath foreign stars.
Now they rested beneath Wisconsin skies.
At the far edge of the cemetery stood a black granite stone beneath a blooming lilac bush.
THOMAS REILLY
1967–1991
Sam stopped walking.
A woman stood there already.
She wore a dark green jacket against the cold and held a bouquet of white carnations tightly in both hands. Early forties perhaps. Dark hair touched with silver at the temples.
Claire Reilly.
Tommy’s daughter.
Sam had not seen her in nearly twenty years.
She turned at the sound of his boots in the gravel.
For a long moment neither spoke.
Then her eyes dropped to the poppy in his hand.
“You still doing this?” she asked.
Her voice carried no warmth.
Sam nodded once. “Every year.”
She looked back at the grave.
“He hated poppies.”
The words struck harder than Sam expected.
“He told me once they made war look poetic.” Her jaw tightened. “Like sacrifice was somehow beautiful.”
Sam stood very still.
“He didn’t die for poetry,” Claire continued. “He died because politicians sent boys into hell.”
The wind gusted hard through the lilacs.
Below the hill, the church bell in Lone Pine struck nine slow notes.
Sam looked down at the grave marker.
“Your father saved my life,” he said softly.
Claire crossed her arms.
“And who saved his?”
The question hung in the cold air between them.
Sam swallowed.
There were no answers left after all these years. Only ghosts.
“He talked about you constantly after he came home,” Claire said suddenly. “You were his brother. Then after he died...” She shook her head. “You disappeared.”
Sam’s face tightened.
Because it was true.
“I didn’t know how to come around,” he admitted. “Every time I looked at you or your mother, all I could think was...it should’ve been me instead.”
Claire stared at him.
The anger in her face wavered.
Above them, Ragnhilde gave a low croaking call from the cedar tree.
Sam knelt slowly before the grave.
His weathered fingers placed the red poppy carefully at the base of the stone.
“I don’t honor war,” he said quietly. “God knows I don’t. I honor him. The boy who stole peaches from orchards. The idiot who danced terribly. The man who carried me three miles after the blast because he refused to leave me behind.”
Claire’s eyes filled unexpectedly.
For a long moment she said nothing.
Then, almost shyly, she crouched beside him and adjusted one of the carnations where the wind had toppled it.
“When I was little,” she whispered, “Mom used to bring me here on Decoration Day. She said people used to clean the graves and leave flowers because memory was a form of love.”
Sam smiled faintly.
“Your mother was right.”
The clouds shifted then, just enough for a pale shaft of sunlight to spill briefly across the cemetery hill.
The lilac blossoms stirred.
And for one impossible heartbeat, the place did not feel heavy with death at all.
It felt full.
Full of names.
Full of memory.
Full of love that had refused to vanish.
Down below, Ethan waved from the cemetery gate while Bear barked joyfully at absolutely nothing. Isabel looked deeply unimpressed. Liam stood with a steaming cup of coffee he'd brought up from Bean & Birch, and Martha and Toby were just arriving with small bundles of fresh-cut spring flowers from the market.
Life continued.
As it always had.
As it always must.
Claire stood and brushed rainwater from her jeans.
“Coffee?” Sam asked awkwardly.
For the first time that morning, she smiled.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think Dad would’ve liked that.”
And together they walked down the hill toward the village of Lone Pine while the wind moved gently through the stones behind them like the whisper of remembered voices.
* * * * * * * * * *
This morning the world outside my wee cottage feels suspended between seasons and between emotions.
The sky is gray. The wind restless.
I sit quietly with a steaming mug of coffee while Joshua Bell’s violin sings Song to the Moon through the room with such aching beauty that it feels less like music and more like prayer.
Outside the window, the begonias and coleus I potted yesterday sway gently on the deck railing. Their colors are understated on this cloudy morning—deep burgundy, soft green, flashes of red and pink—but they glow nonetheless. Small defiances against darkness.
And perhaps that is what this Saturday of Memorial Day weekend has always been.
A quiet bridge.
A threshold between mourning and summer.
Between memory and continuation.
Long before cookouts and crowded lakes and the first unofficial days of summer, this holiday was called Decoration Day. Communities gathered quietly in cemeteries carrying spring flowers in weathered hands. Graves were cleaned. Flags placed carefully into the earth. Names spoken aloud so they would not disappear into silence.
Memory itself became an act of love.
And here this morning, I find myself reflecting not only upon those who died defending ideals greater than themselves, but also upon the uneasy ache so many of us feel as we look at the world around us now.
There are moments lately when my heart breaks at what I see—violence, cruelty, corruption, division, the endless machinery of anger and fear. I wonder sometimes what those young soldiers lying beneath white stones would think of the nation they left behind.
And yet…
As the violin continues its haunting song, I think about something I read yesterday that touched my soul deeply:
“Living in a state of Grace is simply living in harmony with our highest awareness, living a life that is an outward expression of oneness.”
Perhaps that is the answer for these troubled times.
Not surrender.
Not blindness.
But grace.
Not a passive grace that ignores suffering, but an active grace that refuses to become consumed by hatred while confronting it. A grace that insists compassion matters. Truth matters. Kindness matters. Democracy matters. Human dignity matters.
A grace that remembers we belong to one another.
This morning I realize that Memorial Day asks something sacred of us.
Not merely remembrance of the dead.
But responsibility among the living.
To become worthy of the sacrifices made before us.
To live not in bitterness, but in courage.
Not in despair, but in conscious compassion.
Not in fear, but in the stubborn belief that even in dark times, the human spirit can still choose decency, mercy, and love.
Outside my window, the wind moves through the pines.
The flowers tremble gently.
The coffee grows cooler beside my hands.
And somewhere deep within the music, within the gray morning itself, I feel the quiet truth of it:
Grace is not the absence of sorrow.
Grace is carrying sorrow tenderly while still choosing to love the world.
And perhaps that is how we honor the fallen best of all.
~Wylddane
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