A Database of the Dead

My grandmother could have commanded armies. Not in a crude manly way, with false bravado and brute force. No, my grandmother had a silver tongue and sharp eyes. She was cunning and diplomatic, forgiving all slights against her family (and there were a lot of slights) but never forgetting the bastards’ names. She was intelligent and full of a rare fire that comes around only once every generation. She could have conquered the world.
She was also a woman growing up in 1940’s India. She was plucked out of school and married off at 13 to a man seven years older than her. She birthed him a daughter and two sons before they fell on hard times. Deserted by my grandfather because of reasons he couldn’t control, my grandmother was alone, raising three children through one of the darkest times in our family’s lives. We were tainted and ignored by people who once sidled up to us, who had once sat at our table and ate our food. Through all this turmoil, my grandmother burned.
She could have burned out. What an insult this was to all her potential, to the flames that seethed inside her. A lesser human would have succumbed or lashed out. My grandmother was no lesser human. She burned like a beacon, using her very lifeforce to keep her children warm. My father and his siblings remember their mother with something deeper than fondness, they remember her with a fiery respect. They would rally behind her like clans behind a powerful and benevolent leader. She led them through the dark and it cost her every bit of her life.
My grandmother came to live with my father soon after I was born. Until the day I turned 18, which is also the very day she passed away, my grandmother was always there. Now I believe it’s important for you to know something. The woman who I grew up with was not the same person I’ve described in the previous paragraphs. My grandmother, the one I grew up with, was a mean, bitter old woman. She was pessimistic and finicky, and we fought often. I was young and naïve and didn’t know of the things she had done to leave her this way, so I complained a lot. How can she not understand me? Why must she meddle? I asked this of anyone who would listen, and no one answered. I wish they had.
Did I love my grandmother? Did I love the fiery old woman who poked and prodded at everything I did? She was there when I woke up and when I went to sleep. She fed me three meals a day and rubbed oil into my hair. She sniped at my friends, sneering at them if they were girls or from another religion. She told me the stories of our gods, fondly remembering them as having gotten her through all those dark times. She watched the same serials everyday, enjoying the family drama from the safety of her room. In sharp contrast to my grandfather, my grandmother was so intensely human to me growing up. In her death, on my birthday, I remember falling to my knees. I didn’t feel anything as simple as sadness….
You see, all those years I’d been told one thing:
My grandmother had moved to be with me. She had made me her life’s goal. She was made out to be a moth drawn to a flame. She was just a pile of embers who had retired to live a life doting after her grandchild.
But there, on my knees staring at my phone reading that my grandmother had passed away I realised that I suddenly felt very cold. Imagine how a peasant growing up in a heliocentric world would have felt suddenly hearing that they weren’t in fact the centre of the world. That the sun was not, in fact, revolving around them. Of course, I didn’t realise all this at the time. It took many years, with me having to meet my grandmother many times over through the countless stories that I’ve since been told. If I could go back in time, I would look at her, really look at her and notice the soft glow behind her eyes, the searing heat just under her skin, a raging fire bridled by age and a foolish society. I would perhaps listen to her bitterness and assure her that she had not burned in vain.
I do not believe in reincarnation, heaven, or the immortal soul. I believe the desires and identities of our ancestors are laced in our living flesh. My grandmother’s fire burns in me. I was never her fireplace; I was a torch. One day, I will have a daughter, whether by blood or by bond and I will pass this fire on. I cannot go back and give my grandmother the education she deserved, and I cannot go back in time to pull her back for all those times I tried to push her away. For all the light of hers that the world did not get to see, I burn. Even if she may never know it, she is a matriarch and, in her name, I burn.

he died in a car crash in 1994 when he was 17. he was a lovely beautiful young man with the sharpest tongue and quickest wit who should have lived to share that wit on the internets.

Jessica Lee Hayes was a former Navy Veteran, who earned the rank of Quartermaster. She served aboard the USS Nimitz, USS Sampson and USS John Stennis. After four years of honourable service, she relocated to California and focused on her education as a Dental Hygienist. Services in Tennessee will be under the direction of Harpeth Hills Funeral Home.

Fatima was the most beautiful creature on Gods earth. She would give you the shirt off her back. She was so lovely. She was my daughters friend. Her life was not the about the way she died. She was so much more. Poor Fatima never had a chance.

When I was a boy, and life at home upset me--when my family fought and argued, and a peaceful dinner was far from the realm of possibilities--Bob Saget's portrayal of Danny Tanner on Full House was my escape--the fictional world into which I was teleported, where an atypical family managed to maintain harmony, work through their troubles, and resolutions to conflicts were always a possibility. As I grew older, I learned that Full House was a TV show, and that life ought not be compared to a TV show, but for the moments of comfort it offered me during my after-school youth, and for the portrait of a fantasy father I so needed in my darker days, I am grateful.

Also... I won't quote it here, but his brief cameo in Half Baked will forever make he crack up.

A Raisin in the Sun, A Patch of Blue, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and so, so many other extraordinary films...

Rarely has one actor's career been marked by both extraordinarily emotional evocation AND immense cultural relevance. His characters lingered in me long after his movies ended, and so will he. It is my sincerest wish that the new generations of actors study Mr. Poitier's films and acting techniques, and learn from one of the great masters of cinema. If you haven't seen them, go watch his movies. Meditate upon them. Discuss them. They matter.

Alan was quite brilliant, both academically and technically.
He was also caring, daring, funny and sensitive.
He was my best friend and my family loved him as a son and a brother.
We graduated high school in 1971, we “survived” a year together in the South African army in 1972 and we started university together in 1973. Alan was studying Medicine, a field in which I’ve no doubt that he would have made his mark.
4 of us embarked on a mid year vacation to Mocambique and Swaziland in July 1973.
Alan’s potential ended at midday on July 11, 1973, when our car veered off the road and rolled down an embankment.
Alan was ejected from the car and died instantly.
I sat with Alan’s body for several hours until the undertakers arrived, my sole unsolicited companion being a Swazi man, who had been walking along the road at the time, who spoke not a word of English but who’s innate sense of humanity dictated that he support me in my time of sorrow.
47 years have passed since that awful day and yet the grief still endures.

Helen was the matriarch of the local Riedl family. She lived to be almost 98 years old, and was mentally sharp until close to the last few days. Her passions were baking and gardening, animals, and making beautiful culinary presentations handed down from her Hungarian roots. We are thankful for the good memories of her.

My sister, died in february 2017. She died of lung cancer. She and her husband ran a thrift store for 10+ years in our community, and donated all the proceeds to community charitable causes. Brigitta loved everyone and we loved her!
-her sister O-druh.

He is father of 4 daughters and grandfather to 5 grandchildren. He always have a dream and work very hard to reach his dream even through many struggles for years but we are grateful for his strength and kindness. We will never forget it.