Raymond Brunyanszki is the owner of the Camden Harbour Inn in Camden.

My mother once told me a story about her father during the Second World War.

My grandfather had been forced to work on a farm in the Netherlands during the occupation. One day, just after bombs had fallen near him, he saw two boots sticking out of the dirt. Surrounded by so much death, he desperately wanted to save at least one life. He began digging frantically.

The person he succeeded in pulling from the ground was a German soldier, the enemy.

The two men stayed in touch after the war. When my mother was around 12 years old, the family traveled to visit the soldier whose life her father had saved. What stayed with her most was that they no longer saw each other as enemies, but as human beings.

My grandfather wanted his children to understand something important: after surviving war, and after so many had sacrificed their lives so others could live in freedom again, what mattered most was not only being freed, but what we chose to do with that freedom.

That lesson feels especially meaningful on Memorial Day in America.

If we are lucky, we are each given around 30,000 days to live. I have already lived roughly 20,000 of mine, and perhaps have 7,000 healthy and active days still ahead before age slowly begins to limit what I can do.

Many of the men and women we honor on Memorial Day were never even given those 7,000 days. Some spent many of the days they did have protecting freedoms they themselves would never fully get to enjoy.

That realization should not only humble us. It should remind us how tragic and costly unnecessary wars truly are. Behind every conflict are human beings with futures, families, dreams and thousands of days they will never get back.

The names engraved on memorials across America were once sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends. Real people with ordinary lives they never had the chance to fully live. By speaking their names, we ensure their stories, and the lessons they left behind, continue to live on.

History has shown how easily division, fear and hatred can grow when people stop seeing the humanity in one another. That is why remembrance matters. Because what is forgotten can too easily be repeated.

Memorial Day is not only the beginning of summer in Maine. It is a moment to pause, reflect and remember.

May we honor the fallen not only with ceremonies and flags, but through how we choose to live the days we have been given: with empathy, gratitude and humanity toward one another.