We remember - Family Honors the Dead for Third year in Boston
by Melida Arredondo
It's a family effort. Brian, Carlos, and I this year dedicated ourselves on both Sunday May 25th and Monday 26th of 2008 to remember those who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We highlighted eight men from Boston who have died by placing their names on white crosses with their birthdates, the neighborhood they lived in and the country where they died. Hundreds of people stopped to pay their respect, thank us for the display and ask questions. Very few people realized that eight local men had died from the City of Boston. Their names are Kyran Kennedy, David Connolly, Alberto Montraud, Joan Duran, Daniel Londano, Edgardo Zayas, Gregroy Wright and our beloved Alex Arredondo. Many people did not realize that these men represented not just the US in their service but that their backgrounds were Dominican, Colombian, Costa Rican, Jamaican, Irish, Polish and Cape Verdean.
We then painstakingly placed the names and pictures of all of the Massachusetts servicemen and women who had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan around the one block monument - with flags, flowers, pictures and artwork. We also included the often forgotten. A red cross was placed for Jeff Lucey from Belchertown, Massachusetts who committed suicide after returning from Iraq. (We had the good fortune of having his parents visit the memorial to him.) A blue cross with the POW/MIA flag was placed for Alex Jimenez from Lawrence, Massachusetts with has been missing in Iraq since May of 2007.
Carlos could not forget the Iraqis and placed plain wooden crosses with a variety of shoes at the monument to honor the innocents caught in the cross fire of warfare. He also placed symbols with Gold Stars hanging from trees to remember the grief of the families of those who had died.
My husband began this tradition Memorial Day of 2006. As a family we had collected so much of Alex's personal effects and honors that he decided it was wrong not to share with the public on Memorial Day - the day we all are to remember.
As a child, the revolutionary war monument located at the corner of South and Centre was a place he would visit or pass daily. Across the street, Alex would run and swim with his Dad and brother Brian at Curtis Hall, a couple blocks away he would take Capoeira lessons at the fire house and in the fall, the world's fair would begin at the monument. For this part of Boston, the JP monument was and continues to be a focus point to this neighborhood.
Brian, Alex's younger brother, greeted many people this weekend as they approached, offered a handshake and answered questions about the display. Now at 21, I watched him be himself - a gentleman who honors his brother by sharing stories about Alex with strangers who he knows as neighbors. My husband did the same and also shared information he knew about the many other troops that were commemorated.
Many other military families, veterans and Boston neighbors would stop to decorate, leave flowers, provide memoribilia or help when it came time to take everything down. My husband's actions have turned into a true community experience that is now a dynamic and interactive tradition.
Photo by Angela Rowlings from the Boston Herald
Remembering: Melida Arredondo and her husband, Carlos (not pictured), of Roslindale make a large memorial to Carlos’ son, Alexander, and other casualties of the Iraq war, at The Monument in Jamaica Plain yesterday.
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