Tomorrow starts the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend. It has been dubbed the unofficial beginning of summer, with an emphasis on outdoor activities. Grills and lawn chairs will be the preferred dining experience this weekend. Garden centers and baseball diamonds will be bustling with activity. However, Memorial Day was designated with an official purpose as a national holiday. It is a day to honor the war dead of our country.

There are several ways to do so. You may know that it is customary to fly an American flag at half mast until noon on Memorial Day and then to raise it to the top of the flagpole for the rest of the day. You can also attach a black ribbon to the top of your flagstaff to honor the dead. You may have heard that there is a 3 p.m. moment of silence to stop what you are doing to remember those who gave their life for our liberty. However, one of the longest traditions – and one that is recognized outside of the U.S. – is the wearing of red poppies on your lapel on Memorial Day.

The poppy was recognized as a symbol of remembrance after a poem, "In Flanders Fields,” published during WWI. A Canadian surgeon, Lieutenant Colonel John McRae, noticed that hardy red poppies were about the only thing growing in the war-torn battlefields of France and Belgium (known as Flanders). During one horrific battle in 1915 in which 124,000 soldiers were either killed, wounded, or missing in action, McRae noticed the red flowers in the fields and wrote his poem:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McRae became a casualty of disease during the war and died in 1918. Ten months later, an American woman named Moina Michael read "In Flanders Fields” in a magazine and decided to push the red poppy as a symbol of Memorial Day. She sold them to help returning veterans. She then took her idea to the American Legion, which adopted the red flower as their official symbol for remembrance.

About the same time, a woman in France named Anna Guerin had nearly the same idea. She also had read the poem and started to sell poppies as a way to restore her war torn country. Her efforts were heard about in the U.S. and she was invited to be a part of the American Legion convention to promote an Inter-Allied Poppy Day. The British Commonwealth, France, and other Allies signed onto the idea. However, those other nations wear poppies on the day they called Remembrance Day – what we now call Veterans Day – November 11. Americans honor the war dead on Memorial Day on the last Monday of May – what used to be called Decoration Day.

However you commemorate the day – be it with poppies or with your flag, I encourage you to take a moment and remember the sacrifice that was made for our freedom on Memorial Day.

Have a good weekend!