Blythe-a-Day May#30 Memorial Day: Daisy Buchanan Reflects...

"...But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you...

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before...

In my life I love you more"

 

--"In My Life" by The Beatles, written primarily by John Lennon (credited to Lennon-McCartney)

 

During the Jazz Age:

 

One day when she was getting ready to go out, Daisy Buchanan paused. Looking through a drawer, she had come across an old packet of letters from the man who--she realized too late--was the great love of her life.

 

Daisy often thought about Jay Gatsby going away to fight in The Great War, believing that they would be reunited when he returned. Though he survived the war, in a way, he died to Daisy since she did not wait for him to return--yet, he lived only to be killed as a result of Daisy's and her husband Tom's actions after she accidentally killed Myrtle Wilson with her car and let Gatsby take the blame, which resulted in Gatsby's being shot to death by the dead woman's husband.

 

War, thought Daisy, was less dangerous to Gatsby than she and Tom proved to be. Thus, Gatsby would always haunt Daisy's memory. In fact, all war observances--whether Decoration Day, Memorial Day, or Armistice Day, bring Gatsby to her mind as one of the countless soldiers whose lives were changed by war...and 'peace.'

 

As her mind left Gatsby, Daisy's thoughts went to a poem that she had memorized as a child in grammar school:

 

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields..."

 

--Excerpt of "In Flanders Fields" by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae; written at the battlefront on May 3, 1915 during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

Done