That’s what Day of the Dead is about. There is a belief that
on this day the veil separating this world and the next is thinner and so it’s
a time we can be closer to those that we love who are dead.
Day of the Dead celebration centers on rituals for
remembering loved ones. We can visit in our imagination or feel their presence.
It can mean prayer or conversation, writing a letter or looking at old photos. The
tradition that I use includes making an ofrenda, or altar, something as simple
as putting photos and candles on the coffee table and taking time to talk and
remember. We also have chocolate as a symbol of the sweet and bitter separation
from those we love.
A ritual is a way of ordering life. Whether Purim or Advent,
hearing Mass or saying Kaddish, small ceremonies help us sort and reframe our
memories. When someone dies the relationship doesn’t stop, it’s renegotiated,
literally re-conceived.
This isn’t a very American idea. Culturally our preferences
are for efficiency and effectiveness; even with grief we use words like closure
and process.
I
remember my frustration when I was grieving and well-intentioned friends would
suggest I move along in my process and quoted Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The
simplified version of her theory lists stages:
Denial--Bargaining--Anger--Depression, and Acceptance. But it’s false to create an expectation of
five discrete steps. This listing implies order and that a person can move from
point A to point B and be done. That makes grief seem like an emotional Monopoly
game where you go around the board, collect points and get to a distinct and
certain end. This false notion of
linearity is apparent when we hear people judge someone who is grieving, “Oh
she missed the anger stage”, or “He hasn’t reached acceptance yet.”
I always thought that “losing a loved one” was a euphemism
used by people who were afraid to say the word dead.. But after losing
my brother Larry I know that lost is the perfect word to describe the
feeling that follows a death. Something just out of reach, still here, but also
gone.
Though he died several years ago my feeling about my brother
is that I have misplaced him; It’s that sensation of knowing that my book or
that letter I was just reading, are around here somewhere…if I could just remember
where I left him.
I think this is why we can sometimes be so hard on the
grieving, and why we want them to go through those stages and be done with it.
We love closure and things that are sealed and settled. But death and grief,
for all their seeming finality, are not as final as we would like.
So
tonight I’ll make cocoa and light candles; we’ll look at pictures and tell
stories and we’ll laugh.
The root of the word grieve is heavy. We carry
our dead as a cherished burden. Death ends a life but not a relationship. Who
would want to close the door on that?
