On November 1st, 2024, a fire had broken out in an apartment complex a street over. The massive flames and heavy smoke that poured out on every person on the street were suffocating. It felt like I was in a movie, but it was very much reality at that moment in time. As I watched everything coming down, I decided to pull out my camera to photograph the incident. Going around and seeing the flames get bigger, the most I could do was just look at the firefighters risking their lives to put it out. Although I watched with a heavy heart, seeing those who lived in the apartments devastated by the loss of their own homes, there were two people who caught my eye during the event.

Those people would later tell me their names were Skyy and Ockee, and they are a big part of this community in Hamilton Heights, New York, NY. What caught my eye straight away about them was how they were giving out snacks and water during the whole incident to the people who were seeing everything unfold. I eventually managed to get a picture of the two, and with that, I had asked why they were giving out snacks and water. That is when Ockee told me, “My wife is a big community leader, and she likes to give to the people.” With that statement being said, at the end of the day, I found myself thinking about how beautiful outcomes can still emerge from a bad situation.

My family means a lot to me, and one of the biggest days I never miss is “Día de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead), which is a day where you celebrate your ancestors and the people who were important to you, honoring their lives. My mom always tells me, “Cuando muera, nunca dejes de poner la ofrenda y nunca dejes de celebrar a tu familia,” which translates to, “When I die, never stop putting up the altar, and never stop celebrating your family.”

The thing I love most about this celebration is lighting the candles and listening to my mom tell me stories about my family. We play their favorite songs, and we stay up the whole night of November 1 and the whole morning of November 2 until 12 p.m. We say goodbye to our loved ones and wait until the next year.

But something I always tell myself is that even though they are gone, they are still here in your heart. As George Eliot once said, “Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.”