I love Memorial Day Weekend. It’s a three-day weekend and the first work holiday since New Year’s for many adults. It’s the unofficial kickoff to Summer, although in Chicago this year no one knows for sure. It marks about three weeks to my favorite holiday of the year – my birthday. And, of course, it’s full of patriotism.

One of my fellow ChicagoNow bloggers, Tween Us, wrote a terrific piece about Memorial Day and the patriotism it invokes. She did far better than I ever could on this topic, so I encourage you to take a moment and read her post. I’ll be waiting right here.

You’re back? Great.

Memorial Day is a day I love for many reasons, including the fact that it marks the weekend I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1993.

I lived in D.C. from 1993 to 2000 and loved every second of it. One of my very first D.C. experiences was seeing the annual Memorial Day concert. Spending the evening before Memorial Day sitting on the west steps of the Capitol listening to the National Memorial Day Concert became a yearly event for me and one of my favorite traditions. Trust me, there is nothing like listening to a concert from the Capitol while watching the sun set behind the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. My heart swells just typing those words.

Nana always watched the concert on PBS and we’d talk the next day. Every year, without fail, she’d tell me she saw me on TV. I have no doubt that it was kind of a lie (this coming from the woman who always told me that I was her favorite granddaughter, never mind that I was her ONLY granddaughter), but I also know that she loved watching the concert knowing I was sitting in the audience in our nations’  capital. Her little lie was filled with overflowing love, so I forgave it.

Even after I moved back to Chicago, I’d call to remind her of the concert on Sunday night and we’d watch it together – her in Florida and me in Chicago. We’d chat and reminisce about the years I spent in DC and the trips she made to visit me there.

Sharing those concerts with my Nana are some of my most cherished memories of her. And I’ll be thinking of her as I watch the annual concert from my couch this year.

Tune in Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. ET (7:00 p.m. CT) on your local PBS station.

LMS will be taking the weekend off, but will be back on Tuesday.

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