A Sensible Death
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I've been working on a couple of articles about local lingo this week, which got me thinking about cultures and customs. The popular narrative is that local traditions are eroding beneath the weight of globalization (which is not untrue), but as Eva wrote in a recent blog, "cultures are a lot tougher than we give them credit for." And this, I think, is more true. The evidence is all around us. When I first moved to Mexico City, I noticed a mansion-esque building a block away from my apartment that was busy all hours of the day and night. A second floor balcony looked out onto Versalles Street, and people were always out there talking, smoking, well-dressed, seeming to have a good time. A large black car with silver side panels that evoked the Art Deco era sat underneath a green tent in the large parking lot, always full of cars. Each time I passed, I wondered about the place, which for me evoked an urban, Mexican version of The Great Gatsby, if there ever could be such a thing. Instead of stopping to find out what the place was, I preferred to indulge my fantasies. Each time I walked by, I told myself, "This is a social club of Mexico City's elites, living the high life, day and night." I later learned it was a funeral home. People die every minute, I guess, but the idea of a 24 hour funeral home struck me as odd. The notion that a death could prompt a midnight toast on the balcony of a luxurious building was far from my own experiences of dimly lit funeral homes with ponderous organ music, boxes of tissues placed strategically on highly polished particle board tables, and somber male attendants in dark suits. There's another little curiosity about death in Mexico City. Turn to the obituaries and you'll find 1/8 page advertisements taken out by families, friends, and colleagues who wish readers to know that they acknowledge the "sensible fallecimiento" of so and so. Translated to English, that's "a sensible death." As inevitable as death is, I'm not sure I'll ever become sensible about the loss of people I love. But I'd like to imagine that instead of a dark black dress amidst dust motes in a funeral parlor, that when death comes, I will celebrate as sensibly as the folks on the balcony up the street. |
Death is a twenty-four hour funeral home. We cannot split the seconds enough to count the incoming. To toast a loved one, preferably raising in hand his or her own special drink, is to celebrate that life. Recently, my father died, and one night my brothers and sister, brother in law and sisters in law, and their grown children (my nieces and nephews) each raised a Manhattan in his honor. He drank one every day of his life until he was too old to deal with the alcohol, and for an instant he was alive in a clink and a sip./Thanks for the reflecions. I especially loved the confusion about thinking the funeral home was a social club.//Steven
Remember your Manhattan at El Diablo Tranquilo? Nico the bartender was so proud when it came out OK.
My father always said of the meager, military life insurance payout that he'll receive upon his death: "Cremate me. Use the rest to throw the best party, in my honor, that you can."
Great post.
Thanks for your comments, everyone!
I think what struck me the most about this experience was the fact that in Spanish class (way back when) I learned about Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, where people go to cemeteries and have picnics and make little sugar skulls, and celebrate the life of the person who has died. This sort of seemed like the contemporary, urban version.
Once in awhile we need posts like this to remind us of our mortality. One tends to forget.
Reminds me of home (Nigeria) when people take out full page spreads to announce funerals/passings.
Now you got me thinking again... quit that my head is gonna burst. I find it funny here that many "important" Aussies are buried in paulper's graves and forgotten. Sir Henry Parkes, called the Father of Federation for beginning the walk of Australians to pull together away from mother England is buried 500 metres from my house is a paulper's grave, barely taken care of and very little is ever said about him being there. But a footie player receives a grand parade, huge stone and visited by thousands. go figure.
Great post as usual... always look forward to your alluring words.
Terrific post julie - too many of the last few deaths in my hometown have been young men, my age, suicide and Iraq...the funeral home is on the Common here, school on one side, church on the other. This time of year kids play little-league in the middle, on the common field.
Wow, nice job, a very cool post! It's so interesting to hear about how death is handled in other cultures. It sounds like in Mexico City, they have a more accepting approach to it.