As many Americans head to the beach, or take part in backyard barbeques this Memorial Day weekend, it’s important to remember the spirit of the holiday.

"That's my purpose. And their purpose is to serve you and your family," said Georgian Davis.

The Local VFW auxiliary president at Leonard Post in Cheektowaga, Davis goes by Ann. She says she understands what a connection to the service can provide.

"If you don't know what you want to do as a young person, I truly believe the military is the avenue to go," she said. "And that's what he did."

Davis was talking about her son, Nathaniel, or, as she knows, him, Junie.

"There wasn't anything going on when he decided to join," she said, "so I never worried."

After he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1989, he was stationed on the USS Iowa, which had a training exercise go wrong in April of that year. Forty-seven sailors' lives were lost, including Junie.

"I remember they pulled up," Ann said. "The two officers got out, came in, presented me with this [pendant]. It's what I got for flesh and blood.

"This is not a good moment in time. This is a sad moment in time. I'm looking at this picture and I'm sure it is mostly for the sailors on the ship," she said, describing a photo of her in the embrace of one of Junie's shipmates that fateful day. "They weren't allowed to have any contact with the families. They were not allowed to console us or say hello or anything."

More than 30 years later, the pain and loneliness remains.

"All of his cousins and friends [and] families age, but he's still 21 to me," Ann said.

But the hole left in her heart never defined Ann.

"Through the years, it was decided it's best to do something with that, do something positive, with that agony, that grief [and] that sense of loss," she added.

Over the years, she found solace in service and being a Gold Star Mother.

"To take up the mantle," Ann said. "That mantle is the oath that not only I, the other moms will continue to do for our children's and their memory."

The way she sees it, Junie took an oath, and she will carry on that legacy for generations.

"Once the tragedy happens to you, the laws, we're here to help each other," she said. "Just remember what was given for you to have that barbecue. That's all. That's all of us as a second of remembrance."