Anniversaries and Convergences
Today is my sister’s eighteenth yartzeit. Eighteen years ago today, in Depoes Bay, a small town in Oregon, my sister died in a car accident. We did not know of her death until the tenth of December. It took some time for the details to be sorted out in Oregon and then some time for family to be notified. My father called and left a message for me around eleven in the morning on December tenth. It was a Sunday. I mark this day with a candle for Lara.
Until this year, I have also marked this day with a phone conversation with my mother. These conversations with my mom took many forms. A few years, we didn’t speak of Lara’s death, just talked generally; or at least my mother talked to me. My conversation with my mom mirror those that Alison Bechdel recounts with her mother in her graphic novel, >Are You My Mother? Sometimes, we spoke directly of Lara, mostly of her death, reliving the process of learning that she had died, then wondering what might have been. This year, my mother didn’t call me. She died in March; ironically, on Lara’s birthday.
The telephone has not been silent today, however, and email has been filled with nice messages. No one specially writing to me because of this day, but I find their messages particularly special on this day.
All day, I have been thinking about the memorial tomorrow for Nelson Mandela. I do not know if the condition of being on the verge of tears is the eighteen years since Lara’s death or if it is this new loss that makes me feel so sad, so vulnerable, so exposed. News of Mandela’s death came to me after a few other deaths close to home. Not people in my family, but respected colleagues. People I cherish in the world. I remember hearing Nelson Mandela at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. I went with a group of women from the Women’s Crisis Center. Anti-apartheid activism was huge at the University of Michigan when I arrived as an undergraduate in the fall of 1987. I remember going to rallies about university divestment from South Africa. Then, a few years later, seeing Mandela (free!) filled me with awe. This, I thought is what people can do. This is how people can remake the world. Sitting with a group of a half a dozen women with whom I felt an extraordinary political camaraderie, I imagined, this is what I want my life to be like. Now, over twenty years later, I remember that young woman in her first trip to Tiger Stadium. Then, I did not know I would live just a block away in the first house I owned in Detroit. Then, I did not know how activism would shape my life, what other transformations were possible. Then, I did not know my sister would die. There was so much I did not know and so much I wanted.
The anniversary of learning that my sister died converges with the memorial service for Mandela. This past week, with it’s many deaths, makes me think that there must be many large, inspiring, charismatic leaders emerging in our world. Last week, this world became too small to contain so many great ones. It released three from its gentle grip. Hold tightly to those who are hear, my friends. Hold tight.
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