I intentionally reserved this space for this day to wish you a Merry Christmas.

But this weekend, I joined with other friends to say goodbye to an old friend who passed without ever getting the kind of recognition she deserved for her brilliance and talent as a writer.

Mary Beth Ostlund-Wood could have done anything with her life and, in reality, gave a whole lot of things a good hard try. She was a reader, a researcher and a thinker. Her heart, bigger than the room in which I write at this moment, despaired for what was wrong with this world and celebrated what was right.

Years back, she wrote a piece that her sister in law read at her memorial Saturday. It’s strange to think that she was writing about an entirely different holiday than the one we are about to celebrate.

But the nostalgia, the presence and the love transcend that minor difference. When human hearts join together, goodness can prevail.

I don’t think my friend Mary Beth would mind that I shared this with you folks.

“Memorial Day is always such a solemn day to me. All the old soldiers gone. All the young soldiers who weren’t given the time to become old soldiers gone, too. Childhood Memorial Days were a bower of fresh flowers exploding into glory: lilacs, peonies, tulips, iris, the flowering trees and bushes just passing into their summer somber clothes of swaying leaves, blossoms fading. It was time to go with mom to the green house and buy geraniums and pansies to plant at home and on the graves.

“The air smelled like a garden everywhere a child ran, celebrating the end of the school year, and for me, the first day of going barefoot. But at parade time, all the children in the neighborhood raced over to Prospect Street to listen with excitement and anticipation for the parade to approach. Both sides of the street were lined with people waving little flags and chatting with their neighbors, the elderly sitting in folding lawn chairs, little kids on the curbing. Babies were in arms. Little boys stood with one foot on the pedal of their bike and the other propping themselves up on the ground ready to take off in a herd as fast as they could at the end of the parade and follow it to the cemetery.

“The street clear down by the junior high beginning to show color and noise and movement. A little girl darts out into the middle of Prospect and looks, then yells, ‘It’s coming! It’s coming!’ and all the spectators turn their heads north in expectation. Men stand straighter in preparation for the Flag as it approaches. The high school band, the Boy Scouts carrying flags, and some years, clutching bouquets of flowers to lay on graves. Slow-moving convertibles with the aged veterans, fewer and fewer, riding with dignity. The American Legion, Old Glory waving proudly, and the veterans themselves who could walk, all in a cluster, half embarrassed at all the fuss and half proud and grateful to be there. When the flag passes hands are placed over hearts and children shushed. Hats are removed. Women clutch toddlers’ hands tightly.

“Then the crowd walks behind the tail end of the parade up to the cemetery itself for the ceremony, which is conducted with dignity amidst the incredible beauty of the shady, winding lanes between all the grassy homes of those who have passed before us. The sweep of flags cracking the wind or waving gently in a soft breeze, bouquets of flowers everywhere. The air so fresh, the temperature so perfect. The crowd gathers around the grandstand to listen to the speakers while birds chitter in the trees and chase each other through the air. The sharp crack of a salute fired from a row of men with solemn faces. My father looks down at the ground and I see tears, as he mourns his lost brother.

“Does anyone even have Memorial Day parades anymore? I am so sad sometimes at the difference in what I perceive to have been the richness of my childhood compared to the relatively limited and even emptiness of the childhoods now. Where are the parades, the fireworks, the bands playing martial music and the ‘Marine Corp Hymn’ with lots of brass? Where is the sound of basketball hoops’ reverberation through every neighborhood, kids with fishing poles across the handlebars of their bikes off to the river to fish, gokarts made from the wheels of little sister’s red wagon, sandlot baseball, rope jumping, jacks, and games of Tag and Captain May I? Did children EVER walk when we were young?

“My generation, the war time bounty of returned military men and their wives, known as the Baby Boomers because there were so incredibly many of us, may have been privileged to have had the last great childhood. If ‘greatness,’ that is, is measured in depth and breadth of beauty and experience, an abundance of other children everywhere to play with or have snowball fights with, to drink warm Kool-Aid with at summer Bible school, to chase butterflies with. We had contact with nature every day, celebration and tradition, aspirations and goals that were not based on money alone; values and respect taught as a matter of course, and respect for education and knowledge, the responsibilities of power, the existence of something bigger than us to live up to. Most houses had a set of World Book Encyclopedias or something similar if the family budget could stretch that far.

“I’m wishing the best of Memorial Days to all my Facebook friends and relatives, and much love to you all, from a mouthy liberal who loves this country with all her heart, despite its faults and cracks, and who honors those with the courage to go and fight the good fight for little kids on bikes everywhere.”

Amen, Mary Beth. Rest in peace my friend.

Folks, live in peace.

Merry Christmas.

Jane Curtis is interim editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal. She is a 2024 Iowa Newspaper Association Master Columnist.