Love and Memory
A crucifix. A black dress. Symbols of love and memory, with Christ on the Cross and Eva Griego in a casket:
For love and memory, compassion and dignity. Sometimes all a person needs is one open heart, and that mercy itself becomes a sacred icon.
And so we stand, speak, fight. Make no mistake, we are winning; this is both irrefutable and irrevocable. And while some would challenge the very foundations of our American society in order to ward off human rights and dignity, we turn instead to a moment―this moment―in solace and solidarity. To grieve is a gift unto the living; to honor compassion, dignity, and love, we mourn its absence; to remember and carry forward these unique treasures of memory is also to breathe life into spirit, that it may in turn reach out and share its intrinsic value with everyone it touches.
We will love, and we will live. Death can only kill one of those, so long as our human endeavor persists.
____________________
Notes:
Duara, Nigel. "A Drag Queen's Final Tribute to the Grandmother Who Loved and Accepted Him". Los Angeles Times. 3 July 2015. LATimes.com. 12 July 2015. http://lat.ms/1Shh50D
A crucifix. A black dress. Symbols of love and memory, with Christ on the Cross and Eva Griego in a casket:
From under his black veil, sweat trickled down Paul Valdez's face.
On the long walk to the casket in the towering Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, dozens of pairs of drifting eyes found him and bored in. To his left, through the veil's spider web of nylon gauze, he could feel the spite in his aunt's voice.
"At your own grandmother's funeral," she hissed. "Dressed like a girl."
His grandmother, Eva Griego, made dresses for thousands of girls. They got to know her as "Mama," usually beginning with the fitting for their first Communion. They would see her again before their quinceañera, which marks a girl's entrance into womanhood, and then once more before their wedding.
Of the thousands of rolls of fabric she cut into sheets, the last fabric she touched was sewn into a dress for a boy, her grandson.
Framed in a tight bustle and trimmed with black crepe, the dress Valdez designed was inspired by Victorian mourning garments. He pressed the dress' black cravat close to his throat and felt himself sway for a moment before his grandmother's coffin.
Valdez is a drag queen and a gay man. Neither really has a lot to do with the other, he says, but in Santa Fe, both are identities that have earned him as little attention as the city can possibly bestow.
"It's look away, look away," said Valdez's husband, Richard Polley.
"It's not a place where you'll be killed for it," Valdez, 35, said. "But they'll pretend you don't exist."
For those who hold to convention, the growing number of men like Valdez — who assert themselves without shame — is unnerving. But sometimes just one traditionalist offering a helping hand can bring about acceptance: For Valdez, that person was his grandmother.
(Duara↱)
On the long walk to the casket in the towering Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, dozens of pairs of drifting eyes found him and bored in. To his left, through the veil's spider web of nylon gauze, he could feel the spite in his aunt's voice.
"At your own grandmother's funeral," she hissed. "Dressed like a girl."
His grandmother, Eva Griego, made dresses for thousands of girls. They got to know her as "Mama," usually beginning with the fitting for their first Communion. They would see her again before their quinceañera, which marks a girl's entrance into womanhood, and then once more before their wedding.
Of the thousands of rolls of fabric she cut into sheets, the last fabric she touched was sewn into a dress for a boy, her grandson.
Framed in a tight bustle and trimmed with black crepe, the dress Valdez designed was inspired by Victorian mourning garments. He pressed the dress' black cravat close to his throat and felt himself sway for a moment before his grandmother's coffin.
Valdez is a drag queen and a gay man. Neither really has a lot to do with the other, he says, but in Santa Fe, both are identities that have earned him as little attention as the city can possibly bestow.
"It's look away, look away," said Valdez's husband, Richard Polley.
"It's not a place where you'll be killed for it," Valdez, 35, said. "But they'll pretend you don't exist."
For those who hold to convention, the growing number of men like Valdez — who assert themselves without shame — is unnerving. But sometimes just one traditionalist offering a helping hand can bring about acceptance: For Valdez, that person was his grandmother.
(Duara↱)
For love and memory, compassion and dignity. Sometimes all a person needs is one open heart, and that mercy itself becomes a sacred icon.
And so we stand, speak, fight. Make no mistake, we are winning; this is both irrefutable and irrevocable. And while some would challenge the very foundations of our American society in order to ward off human rights and dignity, we turn instead to a moment―this moment―in solace and solidarity. To grieve is a gift unto the living; to honor compassion, dignity, and love, we mourn its absence; to remember and carry forward these unique treasures of memory is also to breathe life into spirit, that it may in turn reach out and share its intrinsic value with everyone it touches.
We will love, and we will live. Death can only kill one of those, so long as our human endeavor persists.
____________________
Notes:
Duara, Nigel. "A Drag Queen's Final Tribute to the Grandmother Who Loved and Accepted Him". Los Angeles Times. 3 July 2015. LATimes.com. 12 July 2015. http://lat.ms/1Shh50D