Seems appropriate that Memorial Day brings back memories.

That’s all that’s left of far too many who made those memories with us but are no longer here to share them and make new ones on these annual days of honor for The Fallen.

It’s hard sometimes and quite painful for the living to call up memories of the departed, especially if their departure from this life came when they were all alone, far away from us in a lonely, lethal place.

And so, too often on these Memorial Days, we forget to remember the sacrifices they made for us as they left, humbly asking for nothing but perhaps just to be remembered now and then by those they left behind to enjoy the life they lost.

They wouldn’t want us to forsake the good times they gave us. But out of an abiding respect and sense of duty, if any of that survives in this angry age, we need to set aside the good new times for some moments this weekend.

To pause the backyard barbecue, the foods and drinks, the sports, chatter and laughter, the games and the good times making brand new memories and to contemplate closely the voids they left, even if only silently in our own hearts.

Personally, I find this process quite painful. Death is so absolutely, irrevocably final. No appeals. Just a blunt end. It’s terrifying to contemplate and hard for us to grasp such finality, which is why we avoid the word and use gentler euphemisms like passing away. Even for beloved pets, we say they’re put to sleep or crossed the rainbow bridge.

There’s an online drawing that evokes tears every time — two dogs sitting on a wooden pier looking out over the water at a rainbow. One has angel wings. The other says “They still talk about you.”

And the angel dog replies, “I know.”

Whatever your beliefs, there is considerable comfort in thinking that the departed know we remember. When I was young, there was no such thing as Memorial Day. It was Decoration Day, which always fell on May 30 whatever day of the week that was.

Then, as so often seems to happen in modern times, Congress got involved, responding to federal unions who like three-day weekends better than tradition. So, Decoration Day, in 1971, became Memorial Day on the last Monday in May whatever the date is.

America’s Decoration Day was one of those rare spontaneous, organic observances originated immediately after the Civil War by ordinary citizens, mainly mothers. On their own, on both sides, they began decorating Civil War graves with flowers late each spring.

There were many of those. The scale of that bloodshed was truly shocking. It’s still the deadliest conflict in the country’s history, as civil wars tend to be. An estimated 620,000 died, about two percent of the country’s population and 50 percent more Americans than perished in the global conflicts that made up World War II. Almost as many Civil War prisoners on both sides died in captivity as died in the Vietnam War.

So devoted and dedicated were those early Decoration Day observers that the Army formally recognized the day.

My family’s Decoration Day observance was simple and ordinary. I wouldn’t call it festive. Wherever we lived, my father built a flagpole stand in the ground with a penny for that year embedded in the cement. I just did that at our new house.

So, the American flag was flying.

My mother bought red, white, and blue crepe-paper rolls to string through the spokes of my bike and little flags to tape to the handlebars. Our small town had a morning parade with the police car, silent fire trucks driven by volunteer firemen, who were, indeed, all men in those days, the high school band, a convertible or two from the local car dealer, and a horde of us kids on our colorful bikes.

At home, my father would remind me of our Canadian relatives who had died in the most recent World War. We would do our outdoor chores with the grass, garden, and animals and the garage radio blaring the Indianapolis 500.

One time, I could not get the lawnmower started. Time and again, pulling the rope on a dead motor. My Dad walked briskly by. “I’m sure you checked the gas,” he said.

“Oh, of course!” I said in faux umbrage, though I hadn’t. Sure enough, the tank was bone dry. But he hadn’t embarrassed me.

Those are my treasured, sacred memories of what became Memorial Day. I trust my parents know I keep them.

Because, to be candid, whenever the end arrives for anyone, all any of us actually have to take are the memories.