Fifty-six bodies were found at South Chicago Chapel, and a Chicago Heights crematory operated by the same owners shut down last year for the same offense.
Mayor Brandon Johnson called the reports about what took place at South Chicago Chapel as a violation of trust. It was. But there is an older word for what was taken.
A funeral is not a service loved ones purchase. It is a rite — one of the oldest things our species still does. It is a ceremony during which the living formally hand over their dead to the earth or spirit world. Denied it, grief does not settle into memory. It simply goes on.
I have spent my life conducting concerts. A concert cannot be attended on your behalf. It exists only while it is happening; when it stops, nothing survives of it but the memory of the people who were there. A funeral is the same. Being told your mother was cremated is not the same as having stood there while she was.
Consider the family from the Chicago Heights crematory who waited two years for an urn, kept it and only later learned the ashes inside were not their mother’s. They had grieved in good faith over a stranger. No fine covers that.
What was taken was not money. It was the hour in which sorrow is permitted to become memory.
Yet that hour belongs to no funeral home, and it has not expired. After World War I, Europe filled with cenotaphs — empty tombs raised for men who were never found — and the words spoken there were not spoken in vain. A rite requires the living, gathered and someone willing to say the words. The body cannot always be had. The gathering can.
David Woodard, Tampere, Finland
Save — don’t trash — school supplies
As Chicago families gear up for another school year, a devastating cycle is quietly repeating in school hallways across our city, especially at the former Acero charter schools now being run by Chicago Public Schools: tons of perfectly usable school supplies are being tossed directly into dumpsters.
At the Creative Chicago Reuse Exchange, we see this waste firsthand. When classrooms are cleared out, pristine notebooks, binders, unopened packs of markers and art supplies are routinely discarded. This is not just an environmental failure, it is a community tragedy.
Right now, many teachers in underfunded Chicago classrooms spend hundreds of dollars of their own money on basic learning tools. Meanwhile, standard surplus supplies are headed to landfills.
We must shift our mindset from disposal to redistribution. Our organization, along with local creative reuse networks like Reduce Waste Chicago, stands ready to accept these materials and get them into the hands of educators and students who need them most. Our semi-annual Teacher Back2School Supply Giveaway event, scheduled for Aug. 21-22, would be the perfect destination for all this unused surplus.
We urge CPS administrators, principals and teachers to partner with Creative Chicago Reuse Exchange’s local reuse organizations before the next clean out day. Let’s teach our children a vital lesson in sustainability and community care by keeping these valuable tools out of the trash and in the classroom.
Barbara Koenen, founder and executive director, Creative Chicago Reuse Exchange
ICE and its gruesome gloves
Imagine you step out of your home, bright and early at 6 a.m. What do you see? Peace, love and kindness? No, not anymore. Instead, you may soon see U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with gloves that can hurt and maybe even kill. These gloves deliver electric shocks that, according to one lawsuit, contributed to a man’s death in Kentucky.
You may soon hear screams of pain and distress. This could happen to you or a loved one. It is not funny, a meme or a joke. This is our lives. Only we can fight, protest and abolish ICE. The people of our city are pleading with you to help. We need to stop ICE. Stop Donald Trump. Don’t let what happened in Minneapolis and Chicago happen again. Don’t stand for this. I’m 12 years old, and we know that ICE is brutal. Let’s stop this madness.
Benten Ortiz, John B. Murphy Elementary School student, Belmont Cragin
West Side youth gears up for triathlon
While many students spent their summer break on their electronic devices or playing video games, some West Side youth spent the last few months training for the Supertri Chicago, the triathlon scheduled take place Aug. 22. Thanks to the multi-functional community facility BreakThrough FamilyPlex and the nonprofit Live Grit SOARS, students were able to seize this opportunity.
Our team has athletes between the ages of 7 and 22. Some of our youth just started to learn how to swim this summer. This is not surprising, as many people of color never had access to learn such skills. According to The USA Swimming Organization, 64% of African American and 45% of Hispanic/Latino have little to no swimming ability.
There’s limited access to pools in West Side schools. In addition, most of our youth don’t have the chance to experience Chicago’s free public beaches and lakefront the way tmany others from more affluent neighborhoods do. But we will not let that stop us!
Our participants have been training at least three days a week since summer started. Many community-based nonprofit organizations and dedicated volunteers have also been helping by ensuring the children have proper supplies, including swimwear and running gear, as well as a bike to borrow for the race.
Our goal is to inspire future athletes and encourage others from our community to be a part of something positive. Our youth deserve to be showcased for their perseverance through adversity. We are defying the odds.
Karonda Locust, Garfield Park