I have been struggling to find a way to personally honor those who died in France and elsewhere at the hands of those who are so certain of the Truth that they feel they can be the arbiter of life and death. I feel terrifically tangential online, but a recent chat made me realize that there are no degrees of separation here.
Here has been my way of ‘saying a prayer’. Listen to both of the pieces below. The first is a Arvo Part’s “Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell”. I think of it as the wake and funeral procession of a jazz funeral.
The second one is the joyous sendoff as we walk back from the grave: ” Didn’t He Ramble” by the Magnificent Sevenths of New Orleans. The joy of the sendoff is for the soul of the dead but it is also for the souls of the survivors. The music’s purpose is not solely to console and be upbeat. It is also to remind those who have lost something (and that would be all of us) that we need to return to world and remember it all in the world, to never forget and keep on.
The Wake and Funeral Procession
The Joyous Sendoff
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You definitely accomplished what you set out to do. The mourning of loss and love in the first one and all the reminders to still live a life of peace, regardless of what circumstances led to that loss. And the second one reminds us not only to celebrate the gift of life of who we lost, but to celebrate our own lives each and every moment of the day.
I have been thinking a lot about this, not only in regards to the tragedy in Paris but also about the people we lose to suicide and what we can do to address mental illness so that it’s a regular topic of discussion and action. I recently lost a college friend who took his life, and we celebrated and mourned his passing this past weekend with old friends who traveled from all over the world. Our take away is that we can’t keep thinking, “Oh, I can always see that person another time.” We need to plan on getting together and carry it out because we want to, not because a tragedy happened. Because our friend who died should have been there with us to feel our support.
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And when I refer to “We”, I mean the world. Any time I hear of a death of someone I don’t know, whether in the US or abroad, I take it as a personal loss. We should all care, right? Unfortunately, the news is selective so we don’t hear about most losses, just the ones they want us to hear about.
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Sometimes all you can say is ‘yes’.