The Looooong Weekend

Halloween (All Souls’ and All Saints’ Days) is a big thing in this country; so big our president declared two working days to devote to it. In addition to these two days were a Saturday and a Sunday, which gave everyone a four-day holiday.

Before this, Monday was also declared another non-working holiday, leaving us only two days during the week in which to work. This now qualifies us to be in the upper tier of countries with the most number of non-working days.

I don’t want to get started on how businesses lose revenue when work is stopped and how daily earners lose so much more. The authorities know that.

I am tempted to write about why I am queasy and uneasy about lionizing and giving undue importance to ghouls and vampires, ghosts and evil spirits, cadavers and satan, but that would be a discourse far longer than the longest weekend.

Let me just tell you one story about a group of children who didn’t go on “trick or treat,” neither did they stop working during the holidays. They used their time to help the living.

The living are us—my husband and two boys.

On our way to visiting ailing relatives on the farthest side of town, we dropped by Holy Cross, where my son Adriano was buried. The memorial park, two days after All Saints’ Day was filthy. Rotting flowers, left-over foods, melted candles, heaps of plastic bags filled with garbage, dried leaves, and stray dogs welcomed us.

The slab of marble that marks our child’s remains was just as filthy, badly needing cleaning. So much for the promised perpetual care in the memorial park contract.

A young boy holding a broom and cleaning rag was nearby. We asked him if he could clean the marble for us. He quoted a reasonable price and went to work. He started by cutting the grass really close to the ground. Then three of his siblings rushed over to help him. Under the heat of the noonday sun, they helped each other to wash down the grime from the marble, and repainted the etched lettering. The whole exercise took one whole hour.     

In between chores, I chatted with them. They were very conversant, confident, and committed to what they were doing. Rodel, the youngest (aged 10) said he and his nine siblings do this every year. They also have some clients who let them clean the tombs every month.

Nearby was a make-shift store selling footlong hotdog sandwiches, chips, and beverages. “That’s our mother’s,” they said. Their mother was moving about, cooking the snacks, serving the few people who, like us, were in that cemetery three days too late. In between, she would wash dishes, sweep the dried leaves strewn around. She was constantly moving.

So were her children. What impressed me most was the way they did their job—like real pros. They worked as a team without pausing in between. They even offered me a plastic chair to sit on while they finished their job.

My son JR kept whispering, “That’s honest living, mom. Make sure you give them a generous tip.”

My husband said, “The outstanding mothers this society honors always come from the upper crust of society. The committee in charge should scour the slums and cemeteries. There is one right here.”

Our side trip to the memorial park was certainly another gift of grace—through a group of children whose mother brought them up to show the living what it means to really live abundantly.