A friend of mine is gone on

I learned today that one of my teachers of Candomble traditions passed away. I feel a bit shaken, not sure of what to say, who to reach out to, to console or be consoled; to speak to the absence and bring her closer, dispelling a distance which feels too real or to stay silent, letting the absence remain, holding on to what feels unreal, but isn’t.

I’m learning that the Dead aren’t our ancestors just by their great deeds, morality, or lived example, nor by virtue, not by spiritual power or by any worldly importance. Ancestors are such just by their having been here, with us. My greatest teachers have been those whose every word and gesture, whose essential teaching, did not necessarily impart any brilliance, success, civility, ethics or purity, nor come about by any generosity of heart or ebullience of character, but rather, was there all along, and remains here still, flailing in and drawing attention to, the gaping, sometimes aching, distance between the real moments we shared and the ever widening, looming, begging opportunity for all the things we wanted to be, should have been, could have been, and still must become. Yearning.

Yearning: the desire for all that is beautiful, fun, right, true, noble, silly, sexy, easy, spiritual and tasty, kooky, kinky, radical, rebellious, righteous, sinful, dear, damnable, and undreamed. Yearning is what makes ancestors, gods; agba, orisha. Yearning is what makes us friends, teachers, students, survivors, lovers, humans.

Mo’ku o egbon mi. Imole laelae.