Arlington, Virginia — At Arlington National Cemetery, the final lines of 400,000 life stories are etched on marble, and each ending is sad to someone.
But uplift can also be found in these final chapters, as the family of Army Sgt. Jack Bryant Jr. showed us.
Jack, who everyone called Jay, was killed in Iraq almost 20 years ago.
“It’s important for me to let that legacy live on through my kids,” Jay’s sister, Jennifer Souza of Stafford, Virginia, told CBS News.
Her children — Jayda, TJ and Paris — and her niece, Jayla, were all named after Jay in one way or another.
“He visited it (Paris) two days before he passed,” Paris explained.
None of the children knew Jay, but they have spent just about every Veterans Day of their lives overcoming that loss.
“It’s like a quiet moment, and we’re all together, it’s nice,” Jayda said.
“It feels like we’re right next to him, but he’s up,” TJ said.
TJ, especially, has surrounded himself with his uncle’s memory. He’s got Jay’s old comforter, a poster of his favorite musician, and of course, pictures.
Every year copies of those pictures get cut, laminated and laughed over as the family prepares to decorate his grave one more time.
Jennifer says it is rituals like this that move those memories across the generational divide.
“It’s a sense of just joy,” Jennifer said. “I absolutely look forward to celebrating him on Veterans Day.”
Turning pain into pride has become a Bryant family tradition.
