Important commemoration days should not be cancelled

Day of the Dead has been celebrated for over 2,000 years in Latin America and for decades throughout the U.S. Fallbrook finally joined in with a lovely, intimate celebration organized by the Masonic Lodge Cemetery staff – for two years they did a good thing.

Then early in September, we were informed via the cemetery’s Facebook page that the event was cancelled. I contacted the Masonic Lodge and received a disingenuous reason for the cancellation.

Granted, as the owners/operators of the cemetery, it is their right, but to exclude interested community partners is, in my opinion, disrespectful. They don’t answer to me but they should answer to this community.

Just think of what would happen if in April they informed the community via Facebook that there would be no Memorial Day commemoration or if in October they announced the cancellation of a Veterans’ Day commemoration.

We don’t have many competitors to choose from when we want to inter our loved ones close to home. This “business” owes Fallbrook a better relationship.

It would have been easy for the Masons to bring people together and figure out how to continue this event but they chose not to. They need to know publicly that they could have handled this much differently, with more civic responsibility.

Also, I say to others, when something is important to us as a community, we can’t leave it in the hands of people who don’t care as much, to put it mildly.