Picture a Memorial

     At the end of an episode of Arthur titled Grandpa Dave's Memory Album, Arthur and D.W. present their grandfather with an album of photos to remember the events in his life as his Alzheimer's gets worse. This reminds me of the conversation my group had when we shared what we thought was most important to include in a memorial. I immediately thought of photos since that is one of my favorite and strongest ways of interpreting information. Of course, not all memorials provide an appropriate venue for images of the event being displayed, but the ones that do, really highlight the purpose of the memorial in my mind. It is a slightly alternative thought, to think that pictures belong in a memorial, but when I can visually see what is lost or what tragedy occurred, my mind works quickly to feel its weight.

The Missing from 9/11

       Symbolism is another common aspect of a memorial and is important for its cause, but more literal and unvarnished aspects like pictures and more specifically, the four soldiers at the Cenotaph in London as mentioned in Postcards from the Trenches, "fluctuate, ceremonially, between life and death". When I see a picture of someone who is gone I see that he/she is alive in this picture and they were alive through the event being remembered, their life was crucial. It is much harder to immediately think the same when seeing thousands of names possibly drowning each other out.

       In the end, seeing pictures in memorials is just an inclination of my own mind and frankly unrealistic for tremendous events of loss such as the Holocaust, 9/11, and the Vietnam War and impossible for events in which pictures did not exist. Any memorial is made for remembering the lost and not for the preference of each person viewing it.