Death has not been trifled with in recent days. The phrase, which could come from the world of cards, refers to the player who does not waste time on small bets or pay attention to low value cards. Death has taken from us in a couple of weeks two unique beings. Atypical, each one in their environment, they will leave indelible marks on those they met. In my case, I reserve a special space in my heart above all for Fina Garcia Marruz.
I was lucky enough to meet her in the early 2000s, when she was designing the magazine The Infinite Island, directed by Cintio —and even more so by his grandson José Adrián. We met occasionally in the apartment that Fina and Cintio shared in Línea y Paseo. The patriarch monopolized the talk and his anecdotes about the brilliance of yesterday rocked us like waves. Fina appeared from time to time like a breeze that cooled the inclement sun of her moral world. She brought milkshakes and sweets that she sent for the pain of paris of the low I don’t remember hearing her underline or limit a single sentence to Cintio. She had a soft spot for Gilma García, —my wife at the time—, also a poet, and I revered her. Unforgettable afternoons reviewing history through the footnotes.
Thinking about death is inevitable. How to deal with her. At some point between the physical body and its memory we must interact with its professionals. Because the business of death is like any other. Instrumentalized its transit, it has filled it with costly rituals. They are companies and they need an image and a logo like all of them.
I was reviewing some of them and almost all of them bet on their friendliest and metaphorical side: the concept of transit. Few dare to refer to the categorical ballast of the slab. Almost all of these from the Anglo-Saxon world. The Latins are much more allegorical in a general sense. They prefer to reproduce the journey, the incredible adventure of detachment and the definitive liberation of the soul. We want to see our dead ascend in spirit and return their mortal remains to earth. This tour is often depicted as a dove.
Since the old testament, the dove reaches benign or positive connotations. She tells how Noah sent her in search of dry land and returned with an olive branch as evidence of the land’s renewed hospitality. The olive tree was revered long before Christianity. In fact, for all the civilizations that knew its fruit. With it, the champions of the Greek Olympic Games were awarded. The dove is today, above all, a symbol of peace.
In many of these logos the dove retains that branch of the primordial olive tree. It might seem, at first glance, a misunderstanding of its symbology. However, this also represents the firmness that we expect from those who are not going through their best moments. What is perhaps decisive for its being widely used in the representation of so many funeral services is that the Holy Spirit is considered to have incarnated in it when descending from heaven. And, by natural extension, return it, make the way back.
Whatever it is, it is a very complex and intricate reading if we compare it with the simplicity of its designs. Possibly that content structure was put together at some point and from there it was replicated like chimes to the confusion.
And to close, we appear, who die like anyone else despite our unbreakable spirit and our stubborn faith in the victory of others. With death we deal differently. From what I have seen and read even in the official press, professionals seem to respect only their own dead. Death is feared justly. And all this despite the fact that we have been a country profusely irrigated by the Catholic faith, also integrated into popular religions of African origin.
The solemnity of the transition to the afterlife seems to have relaxed and all its actors are joke food. Nothing else can be expected, because everything else is also a joke. One of the most dedicated contributors to this column sent me an original photo, taken by himself. The day before I had saved one that I found in a group of memes. And at night a photo appeared on my Facebook profile without comments with Fina’s serious face. I immediately felt that another of the threads that weakly tie us to a beauty already lost and ignored was breaking in our faces. The marabou continues to grow.
