Memorial Day: barbecues, storewide savings, the start of summer. As I watch the ads for pool toy sales and bathing suits, I can’t help but think we’ve forgotten what it is we’re supposed to remember.

Like the over-commercialization of Christmas, the true meaning of the day is somehow being lost on those who aren’t directly touched by the loss of a loved one due to war. Memorial Day is not a metaphor. It’s the day we all must stop and honor those who have given their lives for our country.

Last Memorial Day, my husband and I stood in the small cemetery in our town while our son and members of his high school band played “Taps” for the fallen. And that’s when I got it. My son — my sweet boy who is living through proms, camp, and college — could be the one who dies in a far-away place. Memorial Day is all about someone’s sweet son or daughter.

Like Marsha Smith’s uncle, Benedict Smith, who she never met because he died in Normandy in July of 1944 along with thousands of other young soldiers fighting for our freedom. In 1996, Marsha, a BOCES associate teacher at Pittsford-Mendon High School, traveled to Normandy with her parents to visit the grave of her fallen uncle. In the town where he was stationed, they met people who told stories of the bravery of the young Americans who came to liberate France.

Moved by the experience, she kept thinking about how wonderful it would be to share this kind of experience with young men and women who have no memory of World War II. And that’s what led to the founding of Normandy Allies, a national nonprofit that brings high school students to France for two weeks every summer to learn about history first-hand from those who served and those they served.

“You know how you keep thinking of something over and over again?” Smith said. “Well, I thought to myself, ‘I could just think about this idea or I could actually do it.’”

Marsha and her sister began the nonprofit with three retired military officers who volunteered to help run the tours serving students from all over the country. “I know for certain this is a powerful experience, as students suddenly become aware what kids their age were doing in June 1944 and what that meant for the nation and for the world,” Smith said.

At the end of the trip, the students are given the name of a fallen hero and time to visit the grave. “They have told me,” Smith said, “it is profound in that moment to be alone with not just a name but a human being.”

Smith has been leading these tours for more than 15 years and will travel again this summer with a group of students from all over the country, including four from Pittsford.

The other day, in the car, I listened to a radio story on the woman who wrote the song, “I Drive Your Truck.” She wrote it after hearing an interview with a man who lost his son in Afghanistan; the father said he drives his son’s truck to feel close to him. As I wept, I realized that this man doesn’t need a holiday to remember his son — for him, every day is Memorial Day.

But for the rest of us — amid the barbecue, on the way to the mall, while sitting by the pool — let us take a moment of silence or take a detour to a graveyard to decorate the tomb of a soldier. Let’s do whatever we need to do in order to remember what this holiday is all about and to remember those we don’t know who gave their lives for us.

To learn more about the Normandy Allies nonprofit group and to donate to subsidize the students’ trips, go to www.normandyallies.org.

First Published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network