Maria and I discussed how to honor Memorial Day and the people who sacrificed for our freedom (while our ambitious politicians try to take it away). Her idea, which I love, is to have a peaceful Day, perhaps the best way to acknowledge the horrors of war.

It’s a state of mind, really. We will be incredibly gentle to one another and the people we know – I’ll even be nice to the trolls, yentas, and meddlers polluting our technology and forever hoping to tell me and everybody else what to do.

It’s about simplicity, contemplation, love,  gratitude, and peacefulness. It’s about thinking of people who are needy and adrift. It’s about loving the refugees displaced by wars all over the world.

The best way for me to honor the dead is to honor peace and compassion.

That’s what we’ll try to do today.  People, not God, make wars. We can also make peace. Being gentle with one another, caring for one another, keeping animals and nature in our lives.

We’ll visit the animals, make some colorful art.

We’ll go for a walk, visit the donkeys, check on all the baby birds popping up in nests all over the farm, appreciate our love for one another, and capture the healing beauty of our flowers.

Poppies, which symbolize death and warfare and are associated with both, will be on my mind today and through the summer.

A peaceful day is a good idea for Memorial Day. It honors those who have died for us and reminds us that peace should never be forgotten or taken for granted. All those countless soldiers, innocent civilians, and children had a right to live.

So did the children slaughtered in their classrooms while we pray and pondered.

And there are the flowers, of course, symbols of peace and beauty. Color and light is the opposite of war.