We arrived at the little country church for my husband to begin his first pastorate.
The church had called him assuring him that he would be good for their small congregation after he told them he had just begun his studies for the ministry at Samford University and didn’t yet feel qualified to pastor a church. When we arrived that first Sunday, not only was the parking lot filled, but cars also lined the road for a distance. That gave him mixed emotions. His nervousness increased, but it also bolstered his ego.
“They must have heard I was coming,” he told me.
He faced great disappointment when very few people were inside the church. The church’s one deacon explained to him it was the second Sunday in May, the date permanently set aside for the church’s Decoration Day. The cemetery was filled with people placing flowers on loved ones’ graves and also making it a time for reunion with people they only saw once a year.
Important event
I was well aware of what Decoration Day was, for the first Sunday in May was the date set aside for the little church where I grew up. It was always an important event in the life of our church. My family proudly looked forward to it each year. Mother made two new spring dresses for each of us, me and my two sisters — one for Easter and one for Decoration Day. At that time, not only were the dead remembered and memorialized by placing flowers on the graves, but we also enjoyed a big covered dish meal outside with several tables placed end to end to hold the bounty of food. Some people even referred to it as Reunion Day. I remember my mother growing many gladiolas and irises to make the bouquets for the graves.
To Mother’s dismay, I went into labor with our first child on the first Sunday in May. Knowing labor lasted for several hours with the first child, she was not to be deterred; she went on to Decoration and showed up at the hospital afterward in her decoration finery. Of course, she made it with time to spare.
As years went by, the “dinner on the ground” was discontinued and the crowds diminished somewhat. It seemed with each passing year, fewer and fewer people showed up. Fresh flowers were replaced with artificial ones, some tacky and some extravagant. Many pastors chided people for missing service at their church to go to Decoration Day, as some members missed every Sunday in May because they went to different celebrations. Many people began to bring their flowers on the Saturday before. I remember one pastor almost got fired because he accused his congregation of “worshipping the dead.” To some, this was a holy holiday, so his admonishment was not well received.
Changing times
Because this was a special day for my parents and they viewed it as a slight and disrespect to not place flowers on loved ones’ graves, I still make my trek to the place where they are buried and take flowers. My husband is buried there also, so I remember him on that day too. I usually go before church time, as many others have begun doing. In those early hours before church time, I would see people I hadn’t seen in a long time — that is until this year. No one was in the cemetery when I was.
Some traditions die with time, and I believe Decoration Day on Sand Mountain is on a respirator. This may be because many realize the person isn’t in that grave but is with Jesus in heaven, which is true, or it may be because people are so caught up in their own lives that they rarely think of the ones who have passed. Although we are not to “worship the dead,” it is important that we remember those who have gone on before and their contributions to our heritage, whether on Decoration Day or some other time.
Even Joshua realized memorials were important: “This may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever” (Josh. 4:6–7).
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