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<\/p>\nI\u2019ve written many times and said in many conferences that Flamenco is the art form that better expresses feelings, and thus, since there is nothing more human than feelings, it was going to be easy having it declared as World Heritage Treasure (\u201cPatrimonio Inmaterial de la Humanidad<\/i>\u201d) by UNESCO, giving credence to what many artists said, when this honor took effect in 2010: that it was humanity, the whole world, which was flamenco\u2019s treasure, not the other way around. It goes both ways.<\/p>\n
Now that I\u2019m going through a difficult and painful time, devastated by the most intimate emotions and feelings, as I was writing this article, a lecture I gave a long time ago in a medical conference came to my mind. It was titled:\u00a0Pain and sorrow in flamenco<\/i>\u00a0(\u201cEl dolor a trav\u00e9s del flamenco<\/i>\u201d), and in it I quoted\u00a0cantes<\/i>\u00a0and lyrics which had that very straightforward, popular, no-nonsense way that flamenco has to describe things in a few verses, giving voice and music to the most intimate and transcendent feelings and emotions, and to all kinds of life experiences, from the deepest sorrow to the greatest joy and everything in between. In this case, I only focused on pain, in its full range, both emotional and physical, the type which naturally has more to do with medicine. From that lecture, due to my present circumstances, after overcoming the first days of incredulity and confusion, due to this unexpected loss, I\u2019m borrowing ideas to focus solely on that pain called \u201cthe loss of a loved one\u201d. In this way, as I wrote, I started remembering flamenco\u00a0cantes<\/i>\u00a0and lyrics, and one of the first ones which came to my mind was the\u00a0malague\u00f1a<\/i>\u00a0with which Pepe Nieto el de Orellana (born in Badajoz, like me), won the First Prize por\u00a0malague\u00f1as<\/i>\u00a0in the 1981\u00a0Festival Concurso del Cante de las Minas<\/i>, when he was almost 80 years old, perhaps because we planned to have it performed by El Perrate on occasion of the 25th anniversary of Pepe\u2019s death, together with\u00a0grana\u00ednas<\/i>\u00a0adapted for Miguel de la Tena an a\u00a0milonga<\/i>, written by Pepe, adapted to be performed by El Madalena: –\u00a0Solo por el mundo ando\/ se muri\u00f3 y desde aquel d\u00eda\/ solo por el mundo ando\/ Se me acab\u00f3 la alegr\u00eda\/ y a Dios le pido llorando\/ que arremate con mi v\u00eda. (I wander alone in the world\/ She died, and from that day\/ I wander alone in the world\/ I feel joy no more\/ and to God I ask, crying\/ to take my life away)<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The fact is that this society we\u2019ve created is not ready for death and all its implications, even as, long ago, Pastora Pav\u00f3n made her thoughts very clear\u00a0por peteneras<\/i>: –\u00a0To en este mundo es mentira, no hay m\u00e1s verdad que la muerte y no hay qui\u00e9n me contradiga (Everything in this world is a lie, Death is the only truth, and no one can deny it)<\/i>. However, flamenco has many other lyrics, suited to the most appropriate\u00a0cantes<\/i>, which describe the sorrow felt due to the loss of a loved one: the death of a mother (a very popular topic), of a father, of children, partner, siblings, relatives or friends. Up to now, I had mostly paid attention to the lyrics which dealt with the death of a mother, because it\u2019s so common in flamenco, and also because I had experienced such loss myself. As I wrote this, lyrics which I had read a long time ago came to my mind:\u00a0Doblen la campanas\/ doblen con dolor\/ Que se ha muerto la mare de mi alma\/ de mi coraz\u00f3n (The bell tolls\/ Tolls with sorrow\/ Because my mother has died\/ [she was] my soul, my heart)<\/i>. There are also these lyrics I wrote when I was younger, to be sung by my dear friend who was in mourning, Curro Malena, which not only refers to the loss of the loved one, but to their suffering as well:\u00a0Mi mare mor\u00eda\/ no pod\u00eda hacer n\u00e1\/ Suspirito que daba en la cama\/ eran pu\u00f1al\u00e1s (My mother was dying\/ There was nothing I could do\/ Each of her whispers in bed\/ felt like a stab-wound)<\/i>. Having heard about much sorrow from others, I assumed that the hardest loss would be that of our children, due to the unnatural, unexpected reversal of young people dying before their older parents, as reflected by the brilliant Caracol singing\u00a0por saetas<\/i>, with Jesus telling his mother:\u00a0Porque tu pena es la m\u00e1s grande, la m\u00e1s grande y la mayor (Because your sorrow is the biggest, the biggest and the greatest)<\/i>. Yet, a few days ago, attending a conference about \u201cMourning\u201d which took place at the Badajoz Medical Association, I was surprised to hear all speakers state that the biggest sorrow was the one caused by the loss of a partner.<\/p>\n
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Without a doubt, this clearly contradicts what was sung by Pepe Pinto\u00a0por fandango<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0por sole\u00e1<\/i>, regarding the loss of a mother and a partner, with lyrics from a romance by Rafael de Le\u00f3n:\u00a0To\u00edto te lo consiento\/ meno faltarle a mi mare\/ que una mare no se encuentra\/ y a ti te encontr\u00e9 en la calle. (I forgive you anything\/ except disrespecting my mother\/ because a mother is not just found somewhere\/ and I found you on the street)<\/i>. Indeed, we meet our partners \u201con the street\u201d, but we chose them, and we\u2019re chosen by them, and with them we form our family, a project of life and union, and that\u2019s why we call them \u201cspouse\u201d. My dear friend Paco Toronjo used to put it this way, very clearly,\u00a0por fandangos<\/i>:\u00a0La historia del mundo es\/ cuando mucho se ha quer\u00edo:\/ un hombre y una mujer (The history of the world is\/ How much a man and a woman\/ have loved each other)<\/i>. It\u2019s not possible to say anything deeper in just three verses! Besides all that\u2019s been said, if on top of that we\u2019re lucky that this project lasts a long time, in happy harmony and mutual love, it\u2019s only natural that such loss turns out to be excruciating, leaving us immersed in that stupor I mentioned earlier, making us feel incomplete, as Saint Paul stated when he referred to single men.<\/p>\n
Flamenco came to my mind once again, with the dramatic grandiloquence of Chac\u00f3n\u2019s\u00a0malague\u00f1a<\/i>: –\u00a0A dar voces me pon\u00eda… \u2013 (I spoke [to the wind])<\/i>, which according to the master Fernando el de Triana, in his book \u201cArte y Artistas Flamencos<\/i>\u201d, was Chac\u00f3n\u2019s favourite lyric, and that\u2019s why it was so popular with the public. That\u00a0malague\u00f1a<\/i>\u00a0ended with a brutal reality:\u00a0\u2026 Y escuch\u00e9 un eco del viento:\/ \u201cno la llames\u201d, me dec\u00eda\/ \u201cque no responden los muertos\u201d (\u2026And I Heard the wind\u2019s echo:\/ \u201cDon\u2019t call her\u201d, it told me\/ \u201cBecause the dead don\u2019t answer\u201d)<\/i>. Is that brutal reality which has the greatest impact in our sorrow, so hard that it must be chewed very slowly. Naturally, those who care for us try to help, and flamenco has this reality check in the voice of Porrina:\u00a0– Dejadme flores dejadme,\/ que aquel que tiene una pena\/ no se la consuela nadie (Leave me, flowers, leave me\/ Those who suffer sorrow\/ can\u2019t be comforted by anyone)<\/i>. Then there are the inevitable reflections and advises, categorically answered by Camar\u00f3n\u2019s voice:\u00a0A m\u00ed me daban consejos\/ y ya pa que los quer\u00eda\/ si lo que me hab\u00eda pasao\/ remedio ya no ten\u00eda. (I was given advise\/ I had no use for it\/ what had happened to me\/ had no remedy)<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The fact is that we\u2019re not prepared for death, even as it\u2019s something we all will face. That\u2019s why\u00a0cante<\/i>\u00a0wisely states:\u00a0Pa que tanto discutir,\/ si unos antes y otros luego\/ nos tenemos que morir. (What\u2019s the point of arguing\/ if some soon, others later\/ will all die, eventually)<\/i>. This is a reality which we are unaware of (or which we refuse to be aware of), until we have to face the death of a loved one. That\u2019s when we have to acknowledge the hard, sad reality. We first refuse to believe it, pretending it\u2019s some temporary state. We rebel and then\u2026 we acknowledge it, and, with time, we learn to accept it. This is the key: being able to accept that we, human beings, die. Being able to accept that there is a moment when the strength of the spirit\/soul abandons our bodies, and when this happens our human life ceases to exist, forever. Without a doubt, those of us who have religious beliefs are better able to overcome such trials than agnostic people, since we believe that our spirit\/soul goes to another dimension where we\u2019ll all meet again. I have to add, in a positive note, that this dimension must be awesome, because no one bothers to come back.<\/p>\n
The secret is, then,\u00a0ACCEPTING<\/i>, avoiding the \u201cblack sorrow\u201d, such as the king of\u00a0fandanguillo<\/i>\u00a0from Macarena, El Carbonerillo, described it to us, singing: –\u00a0La pena grande que se llora,\/ con las l\u00e1grimas se va.\/ La pena\u00a0negra<\/u>, es la pena\/ que no se puede llorar\/ y esa no se va, se queda (The great sorrow that\u2019s cried out\/ is gone with our tears\/ The\u00a0black<\/u>\u00a0sorrow is that\/ which cannot be cried out\/ this sorrow never leaves, but stays)<\/i>. There, in five verses, is described basically all the therapy necessary to overcome the sorrow created by the loss of a loved one. Facing it, acknowledging it, ACCEPTING it as something natural \u2013 \u201cDeath is the only truth<\/i>\u201d\u2014Not repressing emotions, but crying all we can and having a positive attitude, avoiding to hide in loneliness, preventing the \u201cgreat<\/i>\u00a0sorrow\u201d to become a \u201cblack<\/i>\u00a0sorrow\u201d, because the latter is\u00a0depression<\/u><\/i>\u00a0and that one can\u2019t be cried out and puts us down.<\/p>\n
With such a positive attitude, I\u2019ve tried from the beginning to overcome my sorrow, looking ahead, with the pleasant memories of my wife in my heart, and it\u2019s with that same attitude that I write this article, hoping it may be of some use to whoever is, has been, or will be facing this difficult process. I conclude singing in the same spirit and form as Manuel Machado: –\u00a0Cantando la pena, la pena se olvida (Singing our sorrow, our sorrow is forgotten<\/i>). Or at least alleviated, I think.<\/p>\n
Here goes my heart por fandango, with these lyrics I wrote many years ago, singing in the hope of living positively in what was left of my human existence:\u00a0\u00a1Adelante!\/ Hay que seguir adelante\/ aunque la muerte \u201cte jiera\u201d\/ Que esta vida es pasajera\/ y se lleva en un instante:\/ a aqu\u00e9l, al que t\u00fa m\u00e1s quieras. (Ahead!\/ We must keep going ahead\/ Even if death stings \/ Because this life is fleeting\/ And in an instant it takes away \/ the one you love the most).<\/i><\/p>\n
Badajoz,\u00a0April 8, 2018.<\/i> <\/em><\/p>\n Francisco Zambrano V\u00e1zquez (Paco Zambrano)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Dedicated to my wife, Mar\u00eda Teresa, who two months ago left us and went to the Kingdom of Heaven)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,258],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-signature"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.expoflamenco.com\/archivo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/pacozambranocc_1.jpg\")
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