Day of the Dead: Sitting at the Knee

Do you remember the first time someone told you a story about a person you'd never meet?

Maybe it was your grandmother talking about her mother. Maybe it was a mentor telling stories about his teacher. Maybe it was a neighbor remembering the family who used to live in your house. Whoever it was, something happened in that moment: a person who existed only in memory suddenly became real to you through words.

That's what's happening today across Mexico, Latin America, and communities worldwide as families gather for Día de los Muertos—Day of the Dead. They're sitting together at altars decorated with marigolds, photographs, and favorite foods of those who have passed. And they're telling stories.

Not eulogies. Not formal speeches. Just stories. The grandmother's stubbornness. The uncle's terrible cooking. The way daddy always hummed when he was thinking.

The Third Death

There's a teaching in Day of the Dead tradition that artist Ofelia Esparza learned from her mother: we die three times. The first death is when our body stops. The second is when we're buried or cremated. But the third death—the one we fear most—is when no one speaks our name anymore. When our story is finally forgotten.

Day of the Dead says: not yet. Not if we can help it.

I hear about stories of great great grandparents of generations past, how the details blur if the stories are not occasionally said them out loud. One's grandfather's specific way of clearing his throat before he started a story. One's grandmother's habit of ending serious conversations with something absurd to break the tension. If the stories are not told, they disappear. Grandparents die the third death.

Maybe you know this feeling. Or maybe you wish you did—maybe the storytellers in your family were silent, or the stories were harsh ones you'd rather not remember. That's real too. Not everyone had grandparents who gathered them close. Not every family story is one you'd want to keep alive.

But here's what Day of the Dead suggests: even difficult stories deserve to be told, because in the telling, we learn how to talk about hard things.

Stories as Practice for Hard Conversations

Day of the Dead isn't just about celebrating the good memories. Families gather and talk about everything—the difficult relationships, the unhealed wounds, the complicated legacies. They do it through story, and somehow that makes it possible.

Imagine a friend describing his family's altar one year. They included his uncle—an alcoholic who'd hurt a lot of people before he died. My friend said they told stories about him anyway: the funny ones, yes, but also the hard ones. They didn't erase his impact. They didn't pretend. But by telling his story complete, they practiced something essential: talking about difficulty without hatred, acknowledging harm without dehumanizing.

That's what story does. It holds complexity in a way that arguments can't.

When you tell someone "I believe X about Y policy," you invite debate. But when you say "Let me tell you about my grandmother, who ..."—you invite something else. Understanding, maybe. Questions, certainly. But not instant opposition.

The story creates a bridge. Not agreement, necessarily. Just... a way to start talking.

A Global Practice

Day of the Dead isn't unique in understanding this. People everywhere have always known: stories are how we learn to be persons together.

In West Africa, griots serve as historians, genealogists, and—crucially—mediators in conflicts, able to approach both warring sides safely because they hold the shared stories both parties respect.

Or Native Hawaiian storytellers, who used song, chant, and hula to teach the next generation not just facts, but values. How to behave. What matters. Who we are.

The Aboriginal Australian tradition of Makarrata offers perhaps one of the most striking examples of how storytelling prepares us for difficult dialogue. Key is truth-telling. Halfway around the world, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) developed a remarkably similar insight.

Its everywhere! In Ireland, the seanchaí traveled from village to village with ancient stories and local news. In Jewish tradition, the Passover seder centers on children asking questions that prompt the telling of their people's story. In Japan, rakugo storytellers use comedic monologues to explore daily life and reinforce moral lessons. Pueblo storytellers, male or female, pass on that which is important to learn through story telling.

Every culture, it seems, has understood: this is how we connect. This is how we teach. This is how we remember who we are.

Maybe you experienced this. Maybe you had an elder who told the old stories. Maybe you sat around a table where family history got passed down with the mashed potatoes. Maybe you remember the specific cadence of a particular storyteller's voice, the way they'd pause before the good part.

Or maybe you didn't. Maybe your family didn't talk much about the past. Maybe the storytellers are gone, or were never there. Maybe you're building this practice from scratch, wondering how to tell stories when you don't have a model.

That's okay too. The practice isn't about having a perfect lineage. It's about starting—or restarting—the conversation.

Learning Who We Are

There's something else storytelling does: it helps us understand our own identity.

I know who I am partly because I know my people's stories. I know I come from a line of stubborn people who made terrible decisions and brilliant ones, who survived things and failed at things, who passed down certain kinds of humor and certain kinds of silence.

When you hear stories about your people—your family, your culture, your tradition—you're not just learning history. You're learning yourself. You're discovering: Oh, that's why I do that. That's where this trait comes from. That's what my people value.

For children especially, this is profound. Sitting at the knee of a storyteller—literally or figuratively—teaches them they're part of something larger than themselves. They're a link in a chain that stretches backward and forward.

But what if you don't have that? What if your chain feels broken, or you never knew it existed, or the stories you do know are painful ones?

Then you get to decide what stories to keep, what stories to tell differently, what new stories to begin. You're not bound by inheritance—you're in conversation with it.

And conversation is what matters.

Your Path

There is an arc that spans family history and goes through you. Perhaps you learn about past mistakes and past passions in your family. You move forward informed.

What This Teaches About Dialogue

So what does all this—Day of the Dead, global storytelling traditions, personal memory—teach us about fruitful dialogue?

Start with story, not position. When you need to discuss something difficult, try leading with narrative. Not "Here's what I think about X," but "Let me tell you what happened to my friend" or "Here's an experience that shaped how I see this."

Stories create common ground. Even when we disagree, we can often find shared human experiences in each other's stories. Loss. Fear. Hope. Love. The specifics differ, but the emotional territory is familiar.

Listening changes us. When you really hear someone's story—not planning your response, just listening—you're different afterward. Maybe not in your position, but in your understanding. Your empathy. Your sense of their humanity.

Complexity lives in narrative. Stories can hold contradictions that arguments can't. Your uncle was both difficult and beloved. The policy both helped and harmed. The choice was both right and wrong. Story lets us sit with that complexity.

Presence matters. Real storytelling happens in presence—not tweets or hot takes, but actual human proximity. Time spent. Attention paid. Whether it's sitting around an altar or a dinner table or a living room floor, the physical act of gathering matters.

An Invitation

I'm not suggesting we all need to celebrate Day of the Dead, though you're welcome to. I'm suggesting we might learn from its central insight: people live on through story, and story makes dialogue possible—even about the hardest things.

So here's my invitation:

Tell someone a story about a person who shaped you. Not a summary—a story, with details. The way they laughed. What they always said. How they made you feel.

Ask someone to tell you their story. And then—this is the hard part—just listen. Don't plan your response. Don't wait for your turn. Just listen until they're done, and then ask a question that shows you heard.

If there's a hard topic you need to discuss with someone, try leading with story. Not argument. Not position. Story. See what happens.

Maybe most of all: remember that you're part of a long human tradition of sitting together and telling stories. It's as old as language. It's how we've always learned to be human together.

The stories don't have to be perfect. The storytellers don't have to be professional. You don't need an altar or marigolds or a specific tradition.

You just need to begin.
To speak the names.
To remember aloud.
To tell someone:
This is what happened.
This is who they were.
This is why it matters.

That's where fruitful dialogue begins—not in debate or argument, but in the simple, ancient act of one human telling another human a story, and both of them knowing that in the telling and the hearing, something sacred is happening.

Something is being kept alive.

What's a story you've been meaning to tell?
Who taught you to listen?
Will storytelling really help in dialogue?
How do we learn storytelling?
How do we apply it effectively?

I'd love to hear about it in the comments.