Veterans’ Personal Memorial Days

Veterans have personal memorial days indelibly etched in their own memories—the day a friend was killed, the day a buddy was wounded, or a day when their unit suffered casualties. Those dates may trigger an intense anniversary reaction. Sometimes anniversary reactions occur without the person’s conscious awareness. A person may feel blue or angry and not know why.

In this exercise encourage veterans to be intentional about remembering their significant dates and to develop a simple plan to memorialize those days.

Purpose

• Create awareness of unconscious grief.
• Promote a sense of control by developing a plan to grieve and receive comfort by memorializing the day.
• Prevent unnecessary adverse anniversary reactions.

Process

• Encourage veterans to memorialize intentionally the events of a personal memorial day by journaling,  writing a poem, planting a tree, writing a song, painting a picture, or spending the day with a trusted friend or in solitude and private contemplation.
• Ask them to take one of the lament psalms, e.g. Psalm 69 or 88 as a model, and write their own personal lament.
• Many Latinos/Latinas create ofrendas on the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos)—a physical memorial to the recently deceased. Sometimes a shoebox can be decorated with pictures and memorabilia to honor a personal memorial day. (See Dia de los Muertos, Exercise #11, for more details.)
• Pastors might consider making a phone call or sending a note expressing support and offering prayer on a significant day.