Under the baobab: On Day of the Dead, learn from the past and each other

“It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” — Julius Caesar, Shakespeare

This column is about death. When I try to talk about death to younger relatives, they dismiss me as being too morbid. I explain that people of my age tend to be preoccupied with death, knowing it will come “when it will come,” (for us, probably sooner rather than later). I read the obits daily to see if I know any of the deceased. I usually do.

On the first and second of November, our brothers and sisters, particularly those of Mexican ancestry, remember and honor those family members and friends who have died. They call it Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. They decorate sacred altars, prepare traditional dishes. They feast and pray. It is not a mournful time. It is a joyous celebration. It is a way of recognizing the lives of those who have gone before.

Those of us who are a certain age have had our lives rounded off by death. One of my first memories was the assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963. I watched the film over and over again. Then like the rest of the world I spent the next week glued to a TV watching: Oswald, the accused assassin, being killed by Jack Ruby; the president lying in state at the Capitol; the funeral procession with his son, John-John saluting; and his interment in Arlington National Cemetery.

The ‘60s were accented by other notable assassinations and massive death tolls of the Vietnam War. The ‘80s brought new visits from the grim reaper in the guise of HIV/AIDS. Since 1981 over 700,000 have perished in America while an estimated 76 million people were infected worldwide, resulting in over 22 million HIV/AIDS deaths.

Now we are suffering through another era of death. More than 740,000 people in the U.S. and nearly 5 million in the world have already died from this pandemic. Our doctors and scientists have invented medicines and cures that can save millions of lives, if people are sensible enough to take them. Many don’t and they die. Resistance to a rational response to the pestilence is unraveling our social fabric. What can we do to mend it?

Perhaps we can learn from our Mexican compadres, paying homage to those who have passed on. We should honor their lives with us. They did not leave us. They were taken from us. Every breath we take is a tribute to them. We are because they were.

What distinguishes us as a species is not the degree of despair we have in times of distress, but rather our collective reaction to help each other out of that despair. The pandemic will be ended only if we work together as a people. We will build back better if we build back together. Out of our collective despair about the Kennedy assassination the civil rights movement found its inspiration and flourished. It took a while to learn the lesson of Vietnam but we did. We realized we can be cheerleaders for democracy but should not be the world’s police. The AIDS epidemic forced the gay community to organize for survival. Out of that structure came the movement which engendered LGBTQ rights.

There is a new and better world out there beyond the horizon, but it will not rise automatically like the sun. It must be lifted by people willing to think past themselves.

Is a field of snow distorted by a leafless tree? Some say this is so when they speak of me. When the spring comes as it will do, what then shall they say. The tree alone will blossom true. The snow? Shall have melted away.