Beauty After Death

"But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban's memory could go everywhere..."

In Gabriel García Márquez's The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, we are introduced to a small community who has just discovered an unusually tall, and large man washed up at shore. Upon first glance, the community is able to recognize that the man was indeed a stranger, but what they unmasked thereafter is what made the story truly unique. At first his size is what was intriguing considering that his height elevated above ceilings and his overall size outweighed a common man even being compared to that of a horse. But what captured the attention of the village's women was the handsome face he carried. 

As the story continued to describe how well he was treated because of how handsome he was, it made me consider life. When the man was alive, he was impossibly tall and large. The story notes that he likely often criticized for it despite everything else he may have possessed. As the women of the village cleaned him up and saw him as beautiful, it made me consider how often this gesture is repeated today. When a person is alive, all of his/her faults and imperfections are not only sought by others, but they are scrutinized. We tend to judge just based on size, shape, and all of the superficial aspects of a person. But if you notice, once a person dies, all of that fades away. Surviving individuals then take the time out to highlight all of the good attributes of the deceased and find the best words to say about those who have passed. 

It's unfortunate that it takes death for us to see the beauty in a person. Some people, if you consider them closely, have the ability to make a very real difference in society just being who they are. You noticed that Estaban's very existence changed the outlook of the entire community and even shaped it differently from what it used to be. Often times, we all encompass this power. The problem is, we are backwards. We scrape to find the good in a person, whether it be stranger or friend, once he/she is dead, but when we are alive--judgement ensues and we become dismantling boulders to one another. It's unfortunate, but Marquez's story reveals this truth both subtly and beautifully.