So that All Souls’ Day can be relived
Today is All Souls’ Day. Yay! We calm down.
Some will say it was yesterday. No, no, no, yesterday, 1is November was All Saints’ Day. All Saints’ Day is the feast of saints. The saints are dead people, I grant you, but they are dead people who have led exemplary lives of faith, charity and virtue and preferably who have performed at least one miracle. In short, it’s a very small gang. VIP deaths. They have the privilege of being celebrated, first of all, before the others.
November 2 is the holiday of all the other deaths, the deaths in economy class, a very, very big gang, of which all the people we know are part and of which we will be part, too, for sure.
It’s a special celebration. All Souls’ Day is like a big surprise party to which the birthday person never shows up. The party-goers remain hidden in the dark. All day.
All Souls Day dates back to ancient Egypt, more than 4,000 years ago. The Egyptians loved their dead very much, the pyramids are the best proof of this. I don’t know if there was a housing crisis at that time, but one thing is certain, it was the dead who had the most beautiful houses. Every year, the Egyptians organized the Festival of the Valley, to celebrate the dead. A large procession took place on the Nile, flowers were placed on the tombs and funeral banquets were held all night long. Wicked party.
The Romans continued the tradition. During Parentalia, in February, nine days were dedicated to ancestors. We owe Halloween to the Celts. During the celebration of Samhain, on the night of October 31 to 1is November, the Celts lit fires and left offerings for the spirits.
They have VIIIe century, Pope Gregory fixed the feast of All Saints on the 1stis november. The other deaths had to wait until the 13the century for the Catholic Church to formalize All Souls’ Day on November 2, but when you have eternity ahead of you, it’s not five centuries of waiting that should bother you. It’s not like the emergency room, but that’s another matter.
All this to ask yourself: are you going to celebrate All Souls Day today? That would surprise me. The lifespan of the dead in our daily lives is very fleeting. The person dies. We are devastated. We mourn her. We make his apology. We get bored of it. Then a few weeks later, it’s over. We move on. Without forgetting him, his memory is put aside. In addition, there is always another death to “bump” the previous death. Hence the judicious idea of honoring all the deceased at the same time. Not just the most recent ones, because when you’re dead, you’re dead all the time.
As a society, we are still shaken by the departures of Lise Bacon, Guy Rocher, Pierre Foglia, Serge Fiori, but Antonine Maillet, Kim Yaroshevskaya, Paul Houde, Jean-Pierre Ferland, Guy Lafleur, René Lévesque, Félix, Denise Pelletier and all those I forget, what are we doing to keep them present in our minds? A piece of road, a street, a wall, a public square, a library, an arena, you still have to go through it.
The ancestors were not wrong to honor their ancestors, all at once, once a year. Recognition is a diminishing value these days, practicing it towards those who loved us so much would be worth considering. All that we have kept from the festivals of the dead of the past are the costumes and the sweets. In short, the artifices rather than the essentials.
I call for the revitalization of All Souls Day. You will tell me that there are more pressing causes. Very true. If there are people for whom nothing is urgent, we said, it is the dead. But it is not just for them that this celebration is necessary, it is also for us, those still alive. To awaken what they left in us.
On October 31, we have fun, we scare ourselves with ghosts and zombies, but on November 2, we don’t celebrate the horror of death, we celebrate the honor of the dead. Radios and platforms could highlight the music of the deceased, there is no shortage of choice, from Bach to D’Angelo, including La Bolduc and Renée Martel. TVs and tubes could push the works of deceased creators. We could decorate the graves of loved ones with flowers and toast the health of their eternal souls. In short, we could have a Day of the Dead that would not be deadly boring and would remind us how important the contribution of the dead is to our lives, from the inventor of the wheel to that of the orange cone.
In the meantime, today, I suggest you listen to the most beautiful song giving voice to a dying person: I become the wind again by Martin Leon. And I leave you with an excerpt:
“I left my loves, I left my friends, without separating us
I left my journey, I left today, I become a memory
I become the wind again
I make the bird fly, I make the ocean sing
Invisible again, I will live in spring
From now on
I left my work, my skin, my blood
I become the wind again…”
