LETTERS FROM...
You must never, ever joke about death. A letter from a shop selling skeletons
Children want what they are made to want. Parents, on the other hand, leave me perplexed: just what are they putting into their children’s hands? Halloween is a festival of death, yet they reply that ‘it’s just a game’.
(Photo: Getty)
Back in September, lorries full of goods were already being unloaded at the nearby Chinese shop. Halloween: an extraordinary assortment of skulls, shrouds and pumpkins from China. But weren’t goods from Asia stuck in the Strait of Hormuz? No: they arrived right on time – in fact, two months early. And already the shop is bustling with a stream of children, hand-in-hand with their mothers: “Do you want the skeleton? Do you want the graveyard candles?”
Children want what they are made to want. Parents, on the other hand, leave me perplexed: what on earth are they putting into their children’s hands?
Halloween is the festival of death. “But it’s just a game,” the adults reply with a smile.
A game? Each of us has experienced at least one bereavement in the family – a grandparent or a father who has passed away, if not a friend. By the age of forty, everyone has seen death pass them by. With its chill, with its eternal silence, with that departure from which there is no return. We have all observed how a beloved face is transformed by that pallor that suddenly makes the person seem infinitely distant. How can one play with death? One may play, but she, motionless, does not laugh.
This is all the more true these days, when war is knocking at the door and Ukrainian trenches and cities are drenched in blood every night. Over thirty people were killed the other evening in Kramatorsk when a bus was hit and burst into flames. There were also three children on board. That is death – can’t you see it? And what about the drones crossing into Moldova or Estonia – are they acting as if distracted, or are they very precisely targeted? Just to say: we can go even further.
And here we are, buying mummies and ghosts as if it were no big deal. Buying them for our children, instead of explaining to them that it’s a silly game, and why. They would understand.
Those who fail to understand are those led by trends, blissfully oblivious. In a state of collective stupidity.
As a child, I remember adults who were more serious. They would never have joked about a coffin. Perhaps because, during the war, they had seen so many. They were young, but aware of reality. They would joke around at Carnival. In early November, however, they would go to the cemetery, holding their children by the hand – so that they might understand.