Our Lady Watching over the Dead

We’re exploring an unfamiliar Oaxacan street when one wall along the narrow sidewalk suddenly gives way and gives me pause. It’s a shop selling funeral caskets. It gives me pause because everything else we’ve encountered so far in this city, every nook and cranny, has been so vibrant. Everywhere we turn, we find smiling and welcoming faces, colour, music, food, and all the other evidence of deeply rooted cultural traditions, including multiple images of Our Lady of Guadalupe  In another word: life.

But here, the opposite. This isn’t a bad thing. Everywhere people live, people die. Places like this are necessary, if uncomfortable. And Our Lady is here, too. The first thing I notice is the big, brown casket closest to me, but, as I glance around quickly, I see her behind, her image without colour (cast in alabaster, I imagine) atop a wooden cross. Although she’s colourless, she’s instantly recognizable. It’s her form, her shape, the sun’s rays all around her. 

I snap a quick picture of her as we pass, wondering if it’s a bit macabre of me to do so. Thinking that I’ll probably never use it. Relegating it to the back of my mind. 

Fast forward to now. This week, a friend of ours lost her mother. As her family enters its grief, I empathize, for this week, too, marks the 10-year anniversary of my father’s death. He died on April 5th, 2015, and the last time I saw him was on April 4th.

One of my sisters and I were with him at the hospice that evening. It was getting late, and she and I were very tired. At that point, he really wasn't far from gone. His body had been going through all of the changes that they tell you about in the world of palliative care. They know when someone is dying, and there's all kinds of information about what happens when the body starts to shut down, all the signs to watch for, and so on. So, we could tell that he was definitely on his way.

He’d been in the hospice for about six days, and, apart from the very first day, well, I don’t want to say that he wasn’t with us because he was there, a muted version of himself, some of the time, but he was also elsewhere a lot of the time in the sense that he was seeing things and experiencing things and talking--not always coherently--about things that we didn't know or understand and couldn't see. And, gradually, he began to communicate with us less and less.

It was as if he had one foot in this world and one foot in the next. By the evening of the 4th, he was very close to crossing over and hadn’t really been communicating with us anymore, though, of course, we kept talking to him. My sister and I planned to be back early the next morning, so we decided to say good-night to him and go get some rest.

Neither one of us was expecting a response from him, so you can imagine our surprise when I said to him, “Good-night, Dad. I'll see you tomorrow. I'll see you again.” 

And he nodded. 

He nodded yes.

Yes. 

My sister and I both saw it, as plain as day. Here was this man, partly in this world and partly in the next, already seeing what was ahead, and when I said I would see him again, he said yes. That was the moment that I knew once and for all that there is some form of life beyond this one. 

One still grieves, obviously. We never want to be without our loved ones. Our friend will grieve for her mom for a very long time. I think of my dad everyday with love and appreciation, and I never miss a chance to share one of his marvellous dad jokes. After 10 years, the sadness for what he suffered and for our loss has abated, but it’s still there, and the tears still come. 

When I reflect on this picture of Our Lady, imagining her watching over the dead, I appreciate that she is devoid of colour because I think it’s a sign that she grieves with us–with all of us–when we lose someone. For a time, life is colourless and bland, as if all happiness has disappeared. 

Yet, eventually, the colour returns. 

And when we see Our Lady once again resplendent in her turquoise, pink, and gold, maybe we can imagine our lost loved ones, too, somewhere near her, resplendent in all their colour and liveliness, waiting patiently to see us again. 

If you're interested, please try my related guided meditation on YouTube or SoundCloud