Dia de los Muertos

Happy Samhain! Happy Days of the Dead!

Though I always celebrate Samhain, the past few years my friends and I have been drifting the Dia de los Muertos direction. The similarities between the two holidays is uncanny, and my friends and I are totally embracing the imagery of the mexican holiday. We love the funky fun skeletons dressed in fancy clothes and doing daily things; the papel picado... tissue paper cut like paper snowflakes only with images of skulls and flowers; sugar skulls decorated all fancy like cakes, and altars covered in pictures of beloved family and friends who have passed on, but are not forgotten. Instead they are celebrated. Their lives are celebrated, their deaths are celebrated, because they have moved on to a better place, and the cycle of life continues with their passing. Because I was intrigued by the holiday since my friends had brought it into my life, I did a little research on it this year. The actual day of it is November 1st (my son's birthday, which was another reason I wanted to learn more about it) but usually the preparations begin much sooner, and sometimes celebrations actually begin on October 31 and continue through November 2. When we gathered friday night, we were setting up our Dia de los Muertos altar and talking about the sugar skulls on it (my friends Tina and Cat had been making sugar skulls since August!!! I have to take pictures of the ones I got.. the picture here are not the ones Tina made), someone asked about the small skulls at the top. Karen said that those were there for the angel babies, her daughter-in-law had lost a baby to miscarriage, and Karen had lost a twin brother in-utero. My other friend Cassie is so observant... she must have seen something on my face, and asked did I need a little skull there too. I did, so I picked one out and put it up there. Karen went on to say that when celebrating Dia de los Muertos, angel babies are given highest priority, they are always celebrated first, even given a whole day of celebration before the rest of the dead are celebrated. And they hold the highest place of honor on the altar. That felt good to know... and it made me wonder if some mamas who'd lost their little angels would feel better if they too celebrated Dia de los Muertos. Society wants us to forget our dead, forget our lost babies or at least.. keep it quiet because no one wants to talk about death or your lost baby. But Dia de los Muertos isn't about remembering our lost loved ones with sorrow, it's about remembering them with joy for the time they were with us, about releasing the remaining sorrow by celebrating, by inviting them to celebrate with us for a short time each year.

So, this year I celebrated my loved family and friends who have passed on:

my angel baby, who passed from my life so quickly, but whom I loved from the moment I saw that positive test

My Grandpa Fry - the first family member who passed on that affected me, because I loved him so much. He never had a negative thing to say about anyone, and accepted everyone as a child of God, regardless of gender or skin color.

My Grandma Fry - Who could make me laugh so hard that tears would run down my face, and whose frugality is still a lesson I try to learn.

My Aunt Deloris - who passed on almost one year ago. She would give and give, never expecting anything in return and if she loved you, she loved you unconditionally. Her lesson to me is that there is NOTHING you can't do, if you really want to do it. She never got past 8th grade, and the only reason she made it that far is her last year of school they brought in a special ed teacher, the first ever in that part of the state. Yet, this woman, who kept a dictionary handy every time she read anything so that she could understand it, managed to travel to several countries (some of them more than once) and had wonderful adventures that the average person only wishes they could have.

My Grandma Dee - She was the rock on my paternal side. She made the peace, kept the seas calm, and she never judged. I recently learned that there was much more to her than I ever knew, and had I ever had a baby girl, I was going to name her after Grandma Dora (we called her Dee)

Grandpa Donner - He had his flaws, but he also had his good side. He raised my dad and my uncles, all good men. For that I am thankful.

And good friends who have passed:
Ron - He's the one I wished was an uncle. He had SO MUCH wisdom, and you just kind of absorbed from him through osmosis, because he wasn't into lectures. He was also great fun, and we looked up to him as a role model.

Cindy - I had some great adventures with Cindy! Because of her, I began to come out of my shell and do things. She wasn't particularly outgoing or anything, but I got to be an adventurous geek because of her, and met all kinds of interesting people like, George Takai who sang a love song to Cindy; Walter Koenig, whom Cindy and a few others of us got to drive around town when he was here; Majel Barrett, Michael Dorn, James Doohan and so many others. I wish I had taken more pictures of all of us.

And I celebrate all my unnamed ancestors whose lives shaped those of us who followed.

Happy Dia de los Muertos!