Day of the Dead

I guess it happens when the people you love start dying. When you are the baby of the family and everyone is older than you, you kind of wind up being last on the list to go and have to stand by and watch life/death happen. I used to tease Mother that everyone she knew was dead... well, I am beginning to know how she felt.

I have no living Aunts or Uncles. My Grandfathers were gone before I was born, my Grandmothers both died in my teens as did my Dad. My sister, my best friend has been gone for 18 years. Life is speeding by like a freight train and I'm next in line.

Memorial Day came and went and it only felt commercialized, but, I need something to keep me connected, especially to my sister. Honestly, the rest I don't much care about... my Dad has been gone sooo long (almost 40 years)and he was a jerk anyway. My Mother lived a good, long life and it was her time. The rest of my family I was never all that close to.

Pretty much since Memorial Day I have been thinking about this, planning it. I decided that Day of the Dead was for me. It is a celebration of life in it's entirety ... the whole circle... the living and the dead.

I ordered a beautiful little porcelain Catrina that reminded me of Trudy. I bought silk marigolds. I printed a picture of the women of my life collage I made a couple of years ago. I bought cream horns because Trudy loved them. This morning I made myself a cup of coffee, loaded everything including tools into my van and headed to the cemetery.

I've always liked cemeteries, so quiet and peaceful.

I ran through the whole kaleidoscope of emotions... dread... sadness.. anger.. I find I am still mad at her for leaving me... I worked hard at digging the grass away from her marker while I was still feeling angry.. then peace.

I took my folding chair and sat right on top of her and told her just how I felt. I told her about the anger and the regret and how sorry I am for the way she died and about the guilt I still feel for not being there for her. and I ate a cream horn, laid one out for her, and left.

I drove to where she used to live. I stopped at the little neighborhood store she shopped at and bought stick bologna and half moon cheese in her honor (how many times did we do that together??)

As I headed home the emotions washed over me, gently this time, and love for those still living... my sweet, sweet husband who has stood beside through all those times, who never, ever let me down or left me alone (unless I needed to be)This man who saved me from myself and the hell I lived in before I met him. This man that I am more connected to than life or death could alter.

I came home. I went on with my day as normal. I will hold these feelings inside of me. I will hold my family in my heart.