I recently learned about Sasha and Zamani, the two stages of death, according to some Eastern and Central African cultures. Sasha is the spirit of a person who is known by someone who is still alive. Zamani is the spirit of those who are not known by anyone who is currently still living.
The concept intrigues me, that there is a place where a spirit resides as long as he or she is remembered by a living person. That concept, taken a step farther, made me think of the importance of remembering family members, and just how far back that might go.
Both of my parents remember relatives who were in the Civil War; that stretches back nearly a century and a half. That must be about as long as anyone’s spirit could exist as a Sasha.
Of course the key is not just that one life may have overlapped another. Perhaps that does ensure status as a Sasha. But I think there may be a quality of the spirit’s existence if the lives of the living and the dead do not merely overlap, but that the living cherishes the memory of the dead.
My parents have given me and my brothers and our families a rich oral history of cherished ancestors. There are hundreds of stories that are retold many times as we sip a glass of ice tea or a cup of coffee while we linger at the dinner table after a meal. Some stories include themselves, but most are stories of others who are no longer living, but because of the stories they do live.
Certainly, as we pass their stories along, even though we did not know these ancestors ourselves, they will still live. It is only the forgotten who are dead; the remembered live on.