Special Edition: MLK's Deadday

"Early morning, April 4, shot rings out in a Memphis sky...'Free at Last!' they took your life, they could not take your Pride!"

Bono got the time of day wrong, it was in the evening, but he captured the power of that fateful day at the Lorraine Motel in 1968. Interestingly, our country is pretty good about remembering the birthday of many of our American heroes. A few have even dotted the calenders of January and February as national holidays. Not much is said, however, about the significance of the day they died, with the exception of JFK. Few of us remember, for example, that is was April 15 that Lincoln died, the morning after he took a bullet in Ford's theater. Probably one of the most significant days in our nation's history was April 12 when our country mourned the death of 4 term president Franklin D Roosevelt. Most of us remember vividly the death of Ronald Reagan and the televised funerals that filled our cable stations. It's doubtful, however, that June 5 will ever have even a footnote on our pocket calenders. The same is true with Martin Luther King, Jr. Debate went on for decades in Congress before Reagan pulled the trigger on making a national holiday for Martin Luther King.

I had a friend in Thailand many years ago who laughed at her own butchering of the English language on an almost daily basis. Being very familiar with the term "Birthday" and its wide use and importance to Americans, she jokingly tried to draw attention to the significance of the day one of her friend's died. Her face broke into a wide smile as the began to translate to English using the self-created crass term "Deadday." The truth is that those of us who have lost loved ones in the past know that the most painful days fall on the anniversaries of the day they died, not the day they were born. It is the deaddays that stick out most in our minds and carry the greatest weight of meaning and emotion.

And so it is with Martin Luther King's death. It may have been difficult to get our nation to recognize the great civil rights leader's birthday, but imagine how difficult it would have been to set aside a day to honor the anniversary of the evening we took him out. MLK's birth represents the coming of age of a nation who realized it was time to clean house, swallow the pride of admitting our own mistakes, and forge a new era for all people. His death stands as a reminder that the stakes are high. That we'll never all get there. That the cost of change is paid in blood. And that the impact of our lives cannot be stopped by a 38 mm bullet. It is also a reminder that we are pretty good about killing off those who make the greatest difference in our nation. Lincoln, JFK, RFK, and MLK to name a few. There was another who understood the meaning of Bono's lyrics in "Pride." The death of MLK and the coming of Easter remind us that Jesus wasn't just giving us a sound byte when he said, "take up your cross, and follow me." The pain of remembering Martin Luther King's, Jesus', or our own family member's deaddays is real. But it comes with the hope of knowing that the bullet, the nail, the cancer, the heart-attack, and the car wreck, don't get the last word. The gospel, the fight for equal rights, the love of a mother, brother, or wife who's gone, lives on. Just wait.