Don Tirso de Irureta Goyena circa 1908 - Manila

 Luto is Spanish for mourning. The word comes from the Latin luctus which means mourning.

 Of late the mounting evidence is that most of the people I ever worked with and my family are all dead. When I bike every day in the nice weather at my age 82 I don’t think I am an exception. I believe I will die soon (statistically).

Waiting to die is not as much and angst producing fear as watching those around me disappear into oblivion.

At this moment a relative who lives in North Vancouver told me yesterday, “I am like Rosemary. I have cancer and I will die in two months.” A photographer friend of mine has signed up to MAID and will die in mid-June.

All this death had me thinking about death in that last century. There was no social media so you could not write, “My grandfather would have been 150 years old today. I miss him.”  Death, while feared, was shown respect.

Embedded in my memory are the many photographs of my grandfather, Don Tirso de Irureta Goyena where he is wearing a mourning band. In my box of less valuable family jewels (most are at my bank) there is this lovely mourning bracelet jewel that my grandmother often wore and then my mother when my abuelita (her mother) died.

There is something beautiful in a jewel that was made to order for one precise purpose. It signified that someone in your family had died.

I cannot wear it as my hand does not fit through it. I wonder as my life is cutting short if anybody in my family will understand its purposeful beauty.