Honoring souls
Benjamin Calderon

The weekend gave the whole nation time to honor the souls of departed loved ones as well as the chance to reflect on our souls.  Not only can we find goodness in remembering our love ones, we also find ourselves dealing with the living and our own character.  A smile was produced seeing the traffic aides doing their work very early in the morning that made traffic flow smooth and parking was well regulated.  The orderliness of access and exit to and from the cemetery contributed to the calm disposition of being able to meaningfully visit the now eternally resting members of the family and neighbors.  Seeing some families set up for a whole day visit with tents, tables, chairs, mats and containers of food and drinks reminded me of how the living can neglect the dead. I smiled at the thought of whether we prefer the dead visiting the living. 

We did get to exchange pleasantries with the neighboring families and get updated on the highlights of the year that was.  We get to meet most of our family friends on this occasion and were reminded of the lesson that the best time to express love to another is when the person is alive.  There was the usual check attendance procedure of warm bodies and taking note of those who had joined the buried.  One could observe that there were more people visiting more graves. 

The next day was also highlighted with a visit to the cemetery, lighting candles and picking up the trash, that in my opinion dishonored the buried, and freshening up the flower offerings.  The late afternoon scene of a congregation of families with lighted candles is always a once-in-a-year scene that highlights our honoring the living and the dead.  It is always a good reminder to honor souls as we live for the remembering is just part of the continuing process of loving one another in life and in death.

The message and lesson were hammered down on me when on the way home we met a father driving a motorcycle with his young son as passenger.  He cut in front of our vehicle forcing us to suddenly stop.  I went down and was immediately meet with expletives and challenged to a fight.  At first the loving and honoring the living evaporated, yet when I saw the anger in the eyes of the motorcyclist and realized how he had placed his young son in harm’s way by cutting in front of us, finding peace reasonably at that instance was not tenable.  He was mad because his overtaking maneuver failed as I did not give him enough room and incoming traffic on the opposite lane denied him space.  I gave him the chance to let off his steam and when he calmed down I proposed that we settle this at the police station.  No point in fighting when there is no referee.  A smile came to my mind realizing that some people make it easier to honor the dead rather than the living.

Let us end with an anecdote that encourages everybody to honor souls.  A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six-year-olds. After explaining the commandment to "honor thy father and thy mother," she asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill.”*