When my wife heard today that Bernice had finally died, after spending months slipping slowly away, all she could blurt out to me was that she had known Bernice since she was 21, which was about 35 years ago. Bernice was a powerhouse of leftist politics in Santa Cruz, California while my wife and I were maturing there in the eighties and nineties on our separate paths. Bernice was a New Yorker at heart but ended up living much of her life in Southern California before settling up north and spending her later years missing the Big Apple. She was our inspiration when we decided to move to Key West and make a new life. "Well," my wife used to say,"Bernice said it takes three to five years to make new friends in a new place." And: "Bernice was about our age when she moved to Santa Cruz and started again."
We spent a lot of time around her dining room table last summer talking, as one does, about the past, and complaining about the present. Her husband Bill died a few years ago after a lifetime spent together organizing and fighting the good fight for ideals that seem in abeyance in the modern era, human rights, looking out for each other and the ideals of the collective. Still she inspired us to hope in a better future. And now she is no more.
We spent a lot of time around her dining room table last summer talking, as one does, about the past, and complaining about the present. Her husband Bill died a few years ago after a lifetime spent together organizing and fighting the good fight for ideals that seem in abeyance in the modern era, human rights, looking out for each other and the ideals of the collective. Still she inspired us to hope in a better future. And now she is no more. From the Metro Santa Cruz Archives this short essay with her thoughts on Death and how she would like to be remembered.
When asked to participate in this photo essay, which will run during the week of All Saints' Day, Bernice Belton lets out a guffaw. "Ya' hear that, honey?" she hollers to her husband, Bill, in the background. "I'm a saint!" Well, perhaps Belton has raised too much hell with all that organizing, agitating and rabble-rousing to fit the religious definition, but she is no doubt considered a savior by the poor, the marginalized and the embattled for whose rights she dedicated a lifetime to fighting.
Given how many times she has had to sit down and hash things out with friends and foes to accomplish her aims, it's not surprising what the political activist expects as a fitting tribute. "I want a moratorium declared on all political meetings for three days," Belton laughs. "I deserve three lousy days, don't you think?"
Along with that, she expects a youthful choir singing a song specially written for the occasion. The theme? "Don't Mourn--Organize and Dissent!" Of course, there'll be food: "I don't care what kind, as long as there's plenty--and music!"
Belton hopes the ceremony will give a nod to her "Jewish consciousness and identification" but still manage to be a nonsectarian send-off. Also an atheist, Belton figures that when death comes, it's all over.
However, life and death are put in perspective by Belton's beloved semper virens that tower over her property. "There's something about having a view of the redwoods that gives me a sense of the continuity of life," the activist says. "They've been here a long time, and they'll go on long after many of us are gone."
Given how many times she has had to sit down and hash things out with friends and foes to accomplish her aims, it's not surprising what the political activist expects as a fitting tribute. "I want a moratorium declared on all political meetings for three days," Belton laughs. "I deserve three lousy days, don't you think?"
Along with that, she expects a youthful choir singing a song specially written for the occasion. The theme? "Don't Mourn--Organize and Dissent!" Of course, there'll be food: "I don't care what kind, as long as there's plenty--and music!"
Belton hopes the ceremony will give a nod to her "Jewish consciousness and identification" but still manage to be a nonsectarian send-off. Also an atheist, Belton figures that when death comes, it's all over.
However, life and death are put in perspective by Belton's beloved semper virens that tower over her property. "There's something about having a view of the redwoods that gives me a sense of the continuity of life," the activist says. "They've been here a long time, and they'll go on long after many of us are gone."
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