“A tribute to the silent work of ordinary people” — an approach that, aims to “show the interconnection between public events and private experience.”
                      Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
                      Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

December 10, 1937, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

Name	Age	Profession	Birth Place
Ramón Sariego Díaz	55	Carpintero	Cardes-Infiesto
María Artidiello Álvarez	45	Labradora	La Habana
José Maria González González	27	Labrador	Piedramuelle
Luis Diéguez Lago	21	Militar	Puebla de Cribes
Cándido Pañeda López	27	Guarnicionero	Oviedo
Luis Carlón Peláez	36	Albañil	Biedes – Piloña
Federico González Martinez	35	Chófer	Loredo-Mieres
José Iglesias Fernández	40	Jornalero	Muga-Lugo

A simple list of names: seven men; one woman. The first two names on the list were a married couple, I know a little bit about them, not enough. I know nothing about the other six men on the list. They are all, however, joined in eternity. A married couple and six other humans they probably did not know and never met. But they were, in a very real sense, brothers and sister. They may not have known each other but their voices are still linked and shout loudly from that very large and deep grave they share.

On this day, 77 years ago, these men and woman were all killed, by a firing squad. Because they dared to speak up, to fight for freedom at a time and a place where wanting freedom was deadly. That day their lives and their bodies were buried. That was tragic enough, but not the worst of what was done to them.

For another 40 years or so, their voices went unheard, their stories forgotten or buried just as deep as their bodies. Their final place of rest was avoided – as if it did not exist, as if they had not existed – by those who knew them, loved them even, for fear that they might be next.

These men and women were among the first wave of what would end up being an ocean of lost voices, just 8 of 1,500 or so humans buried together in one plot of land, thousands of miles away from where I live now, but only about 30 kilometers from where I was born and grew up.

Their final resting place is now a place of celebration, a place where freedom and courage can once again be honored and acknowledged. Their names are no longer just a list on official journals that were kept secret, they are engraved on marble walls so that the world will never forget who they were, how they stood together against the tyranny of a few men who would not tolerate resistance and the silence of millions who were too scared to join them in that fight.

The woman who died that day was one of only 7 women buried in that mass grave who would die for wanting freedom, social justice and equality for all. She thought people should be free to speak their minds, to have convictions and to stand for them. She thought people should be free to point out where society, government and religion failed us and how we could do better. She was an unlikely source of such radical ideas. And she was warned, often, how dangerous her ideas were. In the end, her critics proved to be right; her ideas were dangerous, so dangerous that only death was acceptable to her enemies. Not only did she lose her life but so did her husband, who apparently was guilty by association. And it seems as if her influence led to two of her sons also dying in battle for these dangerous principles and her eldest daughter imprisoned for 8 years at the age of 18. Pretty heavy price to pay for exercising what should be a basic human right. A right we in the United States of America take for granted, not important enough, it seems, to exercise in those “unimportant” elections.

That woman was born about 100 years too soon; she was way ahead of the time, way ahead of just about everyone else in her life. Her world was not ready for her; they could not tolerate the truths she spoke. Her kind is still not very well regarded; her type not well accepted. We say we are for the things she lost her life for, we say people like her are “heroes” but when most of us encounter the real person who represents this ideal, we tend to do everything in our power to negate them, to silence them, to punish them for being too outspoken, too passionate, too angry, too relentless, too radical, too much of everything we want only in the abstract, not embodied in the real flesh of a human body.

I never met that woman; she died 20 years before I was born. Most of her story was buried with her, lost forever, only a very small part of her life is known to me and that little bit has been passed down through the filter of a few people who did not want to say too much, who did not want me to know too much because they recognized in me something familiar, something that needed to be discouraged and extinguished. I never saw her face in life, she never held my hand, I never had a chance to know her as the woman who I am sure had faults and failings. I have never felt truly connected to another living human being but I have always felt connected to this woman I never knew, whose ghost has always pushed me to transcend my limitations and dwarfed me all at once.

From a very young age I heard about her strength, her intelligence, her courage in the face of what would have crumbled a lesser human. And I heard about how I reminded people of her, how much I resembled her, both physically and temperamentally. How could a little girl live up to that? Especially since at every turn, anything that was “too close” to reflecting her was repressed. It was being done for my own good I was told. Small consolation to a very confused child.

And still I try to make sense of why she still calls to me, why my soul and my voice both feel buried deep in that grave so many thousands of miles away, with hers. Her bones must be dust by now but her voice is as clear and as compelling as if she were sitting next to me, holding my hand, encouraging me, reassuring me that I will find the courage, the strength to find my voice once more, to follow her lead, to honor her legacy.

The people who knew her best could not do that; it was too dangerous. She died for her convictions, for her truth. It is time I pick up that flag. To the very end, she stood by it, she would not surrender, she would not repent.

A rebel to her last breath.

Am I made from the same dust as she?