Editorial: Memorial Day will be very different this year, but its message remains

Memorial Day weekend in the suburbs typically brings patriotic parades, a smattering of art fairs, the reopening of park district pools and solemn services at cemeteries or VFW halls.

This year will look very different: No parades. No community band concerts. No pools.

Sadly, the unofficial start to summer will slip by with little of the usual fanfare, save for what ceremonies can be streamed online.

Even simpler celebrations this year are rife with complications. Officials from the Cook County Forest Preserves, for example, have closed a number of parking lots through the weekend to discourage gatherings. They're urging people to stay home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But while we might miss community gatherings, perhaps this is a good time to remember that Memorial Day is about something much deeper than marching bands and backyard barbecues.

It is about taking time to reflect, to remember and to pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

Memorial Day became an official federal holiday in 1971, but its origins date back to post-Civil War tributes to the dead.

Decoration Day was created in 1868 by General John A. Logan of Illinois, who led an organization for Northern Civil War veterans and called for a national day of remembrance.

"Let no neglect," Logan wrote, "no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic."

The first Memorial Day included decorating the graves of soldiers, a tradition that carries on to this day.

In the years since, and in the aftermath of other tragic wars, Memorial Day came to honor more than just Civil War losses.

It came to honor the fallen of every U.S. war.

So each year, we remember the men and women who lost their lives fighting on our soil and on the battlefields of Europe, the Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

We remember those lost on land, in the sky and at sea.

And this year we remember and honor them in whatever ways we can without putting crowds - and our veterans - at risk.

DuPage County has created an online site for sharing stories and tributes.

Elmhurst and Lisle will mark the day with convoys of vehicles.

Other towns are planning video tributes.

Yes, Memorial Day 2020 will look, and feel, very different. But the mission and message remain the same.