Remember Me

I live near a cemetery. When I was in middle school, I had a fort there with a friend of mine named Olivia.
A relative of mine was buried there, so whenever we visited the cemetery, I would leave her a flower.
Olivia didn't know anyone there, so she picked out a grave that looked forgotten. His name was Frank de Mara. She would leave flowers there.


These days every time I'm in the cemetery, I visit four graves.
One is the grave of my relative (my aunt's mom).
The second is a little girl that I've never met. But she was the daughter of one of my dad's students. She was only a year old.
Third is a boy that died while I was in high school. I didn't know him, but I did know one of the boys who was in the car with him when the accident happened. There's a sign at my school to honor that boy.
And finally I visit Frank's grave. I continue to leave flowers there.

Yesterday I walked up to the cemetery with my Dad. I hadn't been there in a while and I gathered four flowers before we walked up.
During this cemetery visit, I couldn't stop thinking about Coco.
I made my usual rounds, and finally ended up at Frank's grave. He died in 1909. He wasn't old either. A bit less than 40. I've never seen any other offerings there.
Who was he? What did he do? Why did he die? What kind of person was he? Is this guy forgotten?
Now more than ever I want to know something about him.

Before Coco even came out, this kind of stuff had been on my mind.
A couple years ago, during my Young Adult Fiction class for grad school, we read a book called "Love Letters to the Dead." One of our assignments was to write a letter to a dead person.
I wrote my letter to both of my Grandpas. I never met either of them (I did grow up with a grandpa - the best Grandpa ever - but he wasn't actually my blood Grandpa. My Grandma married him before I was born, after her first husband died).
I think that letter is when I started wondering a lot more about people that I'd never met.
Maybe that's one reason why Coco affected me so much.

Another thing that affected me about Coco was Mama Coco. I cannot see her without thinking about my Grandpa - the Grandpa who may not be related to me, but was as good a family as you could hope to get.
He died last year. He had alzheimers.
Even when he didn't know who we were, he still remembered his music. The last time I saw him alive, he sang Amazing Grace, and Red River Valley.
So that duet at the end of Coco hit pretty hard.


I think that might be one of the worst things ever. Even if your body hurts, you still have your mind. But alzheimers takes that mind away from you. It takes away memories of the people you love and scrambles the memories that are left.

There's a scene where Mama Coco looks at her daughter and says, "who are you?" A couple people in the audience laughed.
Let me tell you something. That is not supposed to be funny. If their own mother didn't recognize them, I doubt they'd be laughing.

Anyway, I recommend going to your family and asking about the people who are gone.
It's amazing what you can learn. And I'll bet your family will be glad for the chance to pass on what they remember about their loved ones.