Dia del Trovador Yucateco : A Funeral

:: Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. :: 
- Victor Hugo

When I was twelve years old my family lost my little brother - a red cheeked, towheaded and blue eyed son of postcard beautiful parents .  A thin tree limb, thirty feet above a canopy of smaller trees, could not hold his 50 pound boy body of fiery sweetness.  Michael's death directly links to my early career choice of specializing in counseling children who survived traumatic head injuries, and later, bereavement work with children and teens through Hospice Austin in the Camp Brave Heart and Families In Grief programs. 

A few years before my mother's retirement, my parents began the process of leaving New Orleans for Florida, taking Mamère with them.  While my mother continued to mend broken eyesight and treat odd eyeball disorders, my father was fully adoring his role as the 'Radio Flyer' driver that pulled in the NASA shuttles.  Just before the final push to make the move, Mom's good friend, Betty "Big Mama" Rankin, passed away.  Big Mama hosted the first jazz radio program on WWOZ that brought the sound taste of New Orleans to an international audience.  Betty's curatorial expertise at Tulane University's William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive inspired her WWOZ program.  After attending Betty's funeral, Mom asked me to make sure that when her time came I would have a jazz party.  I am to pass out decorated umbrellas, serve Bloody Mary's and Hurricanes, provide tables for all the pot luck dishes and of course hire Second Line musicians to pull us out of our funk.    

Recently, I was reminded of those instructions.  Informed by the traditions of the Yucatan, Miss Bella Bell and I were transfixed by the immediacy of beautiful death.  The Cementerio General de Merida, with its' thousands of tiny tombs thrown like seeds and patinated statuary crowding the silky blue of the sky, left us speechless.  This may have been the first time in my life I was completely comfortable with my own death. 

It is impossible to capture a sublime experience with words alone.  It seems natural that I should have been present during the entombment of Vicente Uvalle Castillo's ashes, maestro de trovador and well loved friend to many.  I felt utterly humbled by this communities acceptance of the presence of a hand full of foreign women, and yet, there were moments when I was so embarrassed, so uncomfortable with being out-of-place, that I considered grabbing my paper fan and running back to the car.  Nevermind that the background noise consisted of romantic and humorous trovador ballads, that my mind called forth a head injured client that asked if my own parents were 'above the ground or below the ground', or that the Queen of the Trovadors was smiling behind fine regalia; the fact is, I wept for a man I did not know.  In that moment, I planned my memorial.  When my time arrives, cast my ashes in the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, the Colorado River and the Dzibilchaltun cenote.  Play jazz, country western and trovador ballads.  Cast magic spells, kick up cow pies and swing copal smoke rings around the room.  Until that day,  love.

Create the life you want!
The Broad 

Cementerio General de Merida is on Calle 81-A at Calle 66 

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