One of the most persistent and pernicious lies we tell
ourselves is that we’re in this alone. Everyone around us is having a Pepsi
moment while we’re wallowing around in the muck. If we’re ever brave enough to
sit down and have an honest conversation with someone— and I mean anyone,
take your pick, from the stranger on the bus to your colleague who you’ve known
for twenty years— we discover that life puts its heavy foot equally on all our
necks. One of the marks of healthy culture is to offer opportunities to reveal
the lie of individual suffering and be together in the truth of our common
griefs and losses.
And so, El Dia de Los Muertos. Went to the celebration in
SF’s Mission District last night and carried along by the power of the Aztec
Dancers and the Brazilian Maracatu drums, ended up in Garfield Park filled with
the exquisite altars. Each uniquely and artfully arranged to honor the passing
of a loved one, with flowers, candles, cut paper designs, photos, all put
together with love made public. There were also hung papers on clotheslines to
simply name the recently departed and here is where it struck me forcibly how
we are all united by loss. Not a single person in the enormous throng of people
who had not been touched by death, not a single one that would not continue to
be touched by death, not a single one that wouldn’t one day be on that
clothesline paper— that is, if there is someone left behind willing to
take time to honor the moment.
To all my dear ones who have passed on, I public apologize
for myself not making you a beautiful altar filled with the things that you
loved in this world. But please know that I’ve built these altars in my mind—
not the same as making it three dimensional in a shared community setting, but
it’s a start. Next year I vow to do better. Meanwhile, please know that you are
missed and forever loved.
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