calloutyourdead

December 26th, 2018 by Jan

We watched the movie Coco last night.

After surfing the channel guide for a good 30 minutes, we finally choose Coco. I’m not sure why we picked it. It only had 3 stars, and was an animated Disney movie. Certainly not one I normally go for, but somewhere, sometime, from someone… I heard it was good.

About five minutes into the movie, I shouted… I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!

I continued to love the movie and at the end, said it again. I loved it. Who ever gave it 3 stars is nuts!

Spoiler alerts coming — if you haven’t seen it, and want to… maybe pass this post by, I’m not going into big detail and this isn’t a review — but I will tell you the gist and how the movie sparked me.

Coco is about a young boy and the tradition of the Mexican holiday, the Day of the Dead.

Growing up in New Mexico, I saw signs of this holiday often. Art work of skulls and bone people were every where in Santa Fe and Old Town in Albuquerque. Still, I never really gave it much attention or asked many questions. I just thought it was another feast day, or a superstition to do with the church.

Basically, the holiday and the movie is about remembering your dead. In the movie, (and in the tradition of the holiday) there is life after death, as long as, someone remembers you.

I don’t know about life after death, but I know when we remember our dead, when we tell a story of them, they come back to life in our hearts and minds.

A few years ago, I wrote a story about my step-father Jack. To me, he was a good man and I loved him very much. Jack wasn’t a man of the world though. He touched a some lives, but not a lot of lives. He was what I call, a two generation man.

There are people who will be remembered for multiple generations. Every time we speak the names of the famous, the war mongers, the inventors, the game changers, the good Grandma’s and the bad Great Uncles… when we hear their names, whether we knew them or not… the memories of them, their accomplishments, their stories live on and on.

But, someone like Jack. A good man, with a meaningful but, smaller reach in life, will be forgotten by the next generation. I only know a few people still alive in this world, who can call his name, have a photo, or share a memory of him. There are a few, but when we die, who will be able to tell a story about Jack and say, I remember when…

The movie Coco, tugged at my heart. It was colourful, musical, uplifting, and showed the importance of remembering.

Call out your dead! When we remember them — they live on!

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