Under The Green Grass

I am struggling to write pretty things for Memorial Day. Yet I can't find pretty things. Not for this.

Death is ugly. Forgotten death is worse. Being hated in death is the worst.

It's easy to forget where we were coming from. A safe and lush life, a place where lives are not numbered by days or even hours. It's easy to forget to whom we owe this peace.

It's easy to be angry to what seems to be an act of agression or violence, to assume it was done as a collective action where everyone is in agreement. It's easy to forget each has a face, each has a name.

To me, it's not that easy. Indonesia is only 73 years old. All I need to do is walk into one of the musty war museums to cry myself over the pictures and the dioramas. Over the pictures and depictions of the dead soldiers.

They were dead. Their opponents are dead. Songs are sung about their leaders and the surviving leaders easily nabbed a place in the government. But the dead stays dead, and for most, forgotten.

It is not my right to judge these people, for I know nothing about their motives. I know nothing about why the soldiers march to wars, why they choose to be a part of it. I know nothing about them.

What I do know is the grass is green in the cemetery, and the body beneath it nourished the land. What I do know is I choose to recognize what they have fought for and not taking it for granted.

War never ends. Different backstory, same result. It is a game of throne played by different players and utilizing different factors. Yet the dead stays dead. And more, inevitably, is coming.

Let me sat here next to you in your forgotten headstone, covered in rust and hidden beneath the weed. Let me kneel in respect for you in the forgotten battleground, forever lost from human memory.

Thank you for your sacrifices. Thank you for the life you have given, in exchange to ours. Thank you for marching in that battlefield. Thank you, fallen soldiers. May you find peace that you deserves.