Death is far more complicated than you think, because life is a less clear boundary than you think.

Stories and complete rememberance really do keep people around in some ways.

If im telling you a story about, say, dolores huerta, its the same as if she was still alive for a moment-you never knew her, she was never a physical presence in your life, and probably only effected you through the idea of her. Which was never completely her own creation, always passed and shaped by proxies.

And building upon her work makes her a part of the thing. Not her, but her effects on the world, the ripples she left in the pond. They become static, yes, but under enough institutional weight they would be held in place anyway.

The ways they impact your life, degrees out, remain and are extrapolated on. In huerta’s example, you probably notice some of them more days than not if you work in the united states, especially agricultural work.

There’s no more touch, this is true. The same could be said of people who move far away.

Death is distance, some things are off the table, but the light reflected off them bounces off the cave walls for a while.

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Dolores huerta isn’t dead. This is largely how we interact with the living, too.