REsources for Living
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Our ancestors are the people gone before us—blood relations or family of mind and spirit—who guide and instruct and inspire us. They are, however, also the people who limit us with memories of their fears and their expectations, whose well-worn paths we may feel we need to follow, whether or not that’s the journey we want to take.
We are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” who call us on and give us strength—or who sit in unending judgement, speaking through the voices inside our head that remind us that we were supposed to turn out to be something that we’re not. People are complicated. Which means that relationships between people are even more complicated. And they don’t stop being complicated after people die.
Relationships also don’t go away after people die. My paternal grandfather came to this country in the early part of the 20th Century, looking for a place where it was safe to be Jewish. He longed to be a scholar, but took the realistic option of being a tailor. He provided for his family, but I don’t think anyone ever described him as being content with his life. My three siblings and I all have earned some form of doctorate. My grandfather died before I was born, but I have no doubt that his life speaks in me, nudging my direction.
Maybe you saw the movie Coco, which came out in 2017. If not, I’ll try not to give away any big surprises, because you definitely should see it. Young Miguel longs to be a musician, and has even managed to cobble together a guitar and learn to play it. But he has to do all of his practice in secret, because music is strictly forbidden in his family. They are shoemakers, not musicians. They are loving, but also firmly strict in enforcing this rule that goes against the center of Miguel’s heart. It takes a visit to the world of the dead for Miguel to discover the family story of heartbreak that is still keeping him from what he loves. And he discovers that hearts can mend even after death, and that you are still alive in the world of the dead so long as someone remembers you.
The movie is beautiful, but the title might be confusing. The main character is Miguel. Coco is his extremely elderly grandmother, who is moving deeper and deeper into dementia. I don’t think that Coco says more than a couple of words in the whole movie. It isn’t her story.
Except that it is. Miguel can’t claim his own story until he understands hers. What he loves, what he wants, what stands in his way—all of it is wrapped up in a story that goes back two generations. Miguel’s story is the continuation and (in the way of Disney movies) the resolution of Coco’s story.
Our ancestors write our stories, and we tell theirs.
These ancestors don’t even need to be blood or adoptive relatives. Mentors, friends, heroes, teachers, ancestors in faith—all have their part in shaping who we are, and we carry all of them forward with us. Your favorite poet, your high school science teacher, your martial arts instructor, and the novelist whose book changed your point of view are all your ancestors, all part of the arc of your story.
I was in my early 20s when someone gave me a book of Adrienne Rich’s poetry, and I read these words: “No one lives in this room…without contemplating last and late the true nature of poetry. The drive to connect. The dream of a common language.” And I recognized in those words what I wanted to do with my life—to dream a language that would hold our human desire to connect. Her words and her story spoke to me, and they keep speaking. I hope that in some way I carry on a tiny piece of her heritage.
The pagan celebration of Samhain on October 31, the Catholic All Souls Day on November 2, and the Mexican celebration of El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which spans those dates, all point to the same truth: the dead are still with us. It matters that we hold their stories. And somehow this time of year feels right to honor that connection in all its complexity.
And it is a gift to people of all ages when we honor that connection deliberately, ritually, as families that include both the living and the dead. A celebration could include building an altar, sharing memories and stories as we place on it pictures and favorite items in honor of those who are no longer alive, but are still with us.
It might involve visiting and tending to grave sites, letting children be involved in helping to honor and preserve the memories of those they loved or those they never met. It might mean getting out a picture album and remembering out loud the funny stories and personal quirks and even the character flaws of people who you want to keep alive in memory.
In the song, “We Are,” Ysaye Barnwell writes: “We are our grandmothers’ prayers, and we are our grandfathers’ dreaming. We are the breath of our ancestors. We are the spirit of God.” Our ancestors breathe through us. And we will breathe through the lives of those who come after us. It is our job to write a life story that is worthy of that history and that future.
- REsources for Living - December 1, 2020
- A Fond Goodbye - December 1, 2020
- REsources for Living - November 1, 2020
