Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Day of the Dead: Newcomers to a 5000 year old tradition

I just finished Phase 1 of our Day of the Dead altar. There is always a Phase 2 because we build it with our neighbours and then we forget the odd thing, or decide to add some things once we have it set up. A picture of Helen, Ralph's sister is needed, and a Coca Cola without sugar for Patricia's mama, who left us last year. As we set up the altar, we chat, and some believe it is our chatting that brings souls by for a visit. We talk about the deceased, but we also just chat about what we're doing, what plans we have. The idea is that the souls that come back to visit want an update on what we've been up to and what we have planned.



There are sad moments, of course. This morning lying in bed before I went for a run, I was thinking that this was the first year I would celebrate my Grandfather's passing. You don't celebrate someone on Day of the Dead if they have not passed more than 12 months. In practice, the tradition started from when you would bury your dead under your kitchen floor and then once a year (once they had passed for more than 12 months), you would dig up their skull and place the skull in the house in order to have that soul "visit". No one wants to dig up a semi-decomposed skull. No one. So, the "story" is that those recently departed stay in the land of the dead to keep it safe while the older souls go back and visit.

But then this morning on my run, I started thinking about what my Grandfather would have thought of coming back to visit. I wonder if by my living here has now obligated him somehow to come by and visit. This idea makes me smile. There he is in Canadian Catholic Heaven and someone knocks and says - OK, put the chocolate down, you need to go and visit Tanya in Oaxaca sometime in the next 24 hours.

And I can just see both the look on his face and the twinkle in his eye. His crazy grand daughter went to live in Mexico (where he thought I would be murdered) and now he has to come by and visit. But the twinkle and the half smile would show that he would be happy to come, to see, to explore. Had he been able to visit when he was alive, we would have sampled all the street food together and he would have had the runs for a week and he would have shed tears in the Tlacolula market for all the fresh food and yellow chickens. He never did manage a visit, but he is with me here every day. When I make bread, when I grab my cookbooks, when I talk about Oaxacan chocolate...

And so over the next few days he will come to visit. He was here once before, his spirit came to visit just after he had died, when I felt him so close I could almost smell the aftershave (Old Spice and Azarro, forever!). And now he gets to come back. Along with so many others who we loved while we could hug and hold, and love now that they live on only in our hearts and memories. Sisters, parents, grandparents, friends, cats, dogs.

Enjoy Day of the Dead, whatever your custom or beliefs.