I’m afraid of ghosts. Everyone who knows me knows that. Ghosts, spirits, the afterlife, the paranormal…Noooooope, get that shit away from me. My grandparents all died when I was fairly young and I didn’t think much about what that actually meant at the time. I was busy missing playing concentration with my Grandma Inns or getting that last puzzle piece with my Grandma Lynch or getting Grandpa Lynch to make a funny face at me, just things that were naturally there and then naturally not there anymore. The thoughts sort of ended there. They were gone, and that was that. All of my Grandma Lynch’s jewelry that my parents let me have fit into a ziplock bag that over the years was torn up and turned cloudy from the metal of the costume jewelry. My Grandma Inns’ ivory fan and engagement ring she left me in her Will sit in a drawer, remembered only when I move things around and bump into them accidentally. These items, once belonged to people that I loved dearly are now just another piece of history in a drawer. How easily I’ve forgotten.
When my Grandma Lynch passed away, I attended her funeral with everyone, I cried because I knew that i would never see her again. I went up to her casket and kneeled down and did what I thought praying was. I went home and fell asleep and had a dream that my grandma sat up in her casket, stroked my hair and told me that everything was going to be ok, that she was in a better place. I woke up thinking that it was a weird dream and when I told my mom and aunt about it they said that my grandma had picked me to visit from beyond to comfort me.
This scared me half to death. A ghost? In my dream? Uhhhhh, I loved you grandma but seriously not cool.
When my Grandma Inns died my mom and I stopped off at the store after we left the hospital. She ran into the store for something and I spoke out loud to anything that was listening to leave me alone. I told my grandmother that I loved her and missed her but to please, please, please not visit me in my dream that night. I was terrified to sleep. I was terrified of anything that had to do with the dead, or spirits, or what happens after.
Last night I attended the Dia De Los Muertos celebration in San Francisco’s Mission District. When Geary and I first heard about this our instant thought was that we were going to wear our Fred and Wilma Halloween costumes with the skeleton face painted on, sneak in some alcohol and check out this party that we had heard so much about. Here’s a picture of our costumes this year so you can get a decent idea of what we would have looked like had we made this horrible mistake. Just imagine this with skeleton face paint…
I googled their website a couple days beforehand to see what kind of vendors might be there and got a glimpse into what we could expect from this gathering. I could not have been more wrong as to what this day means and I couldn’t have prepared myself for what it would be like to experience it.
The “let’s get drunk and walk around” idea not only went out the window once we arrived at Garfield Park, but it quickly turned into a sign of extreme disrespect for anyone who had decided that that was the very best idea they’d ever had. As we turned the corner onto the street lined with hundreds of people dancing and chanting to rhythmic drumming, the altars spread out along the sidewalks and underneath the trees of the park came into view. The first altar that we came upon was adorned with photographs of a little boy in a posed, professional photograph holding a giant number “2” with a huge smile across his face. The others were candid shots of him with his mother, running, playing, being a two year old. It was clear that this altar was made for him, in his memory. He had passed away, and with this realization came a swift change in mood amongst us.
We worked our way through the crowds of people, some altars more “magnificent” and “impressive (?)” than others, though all holding the same weight. We moved between throngs of people throwing marigolds and pennies. Some people were kneeling and praying in front of incense while others stood by themselves, hands closed over their mouths trying to hold back tears as they read the letter a man wrote to his wife, promising never to forget her and to love her until forever.
Passing by young college students handing off a bottle of whiskey between them I began to get annoyed. One kid was stumbling around; his skeleton makeup smeared from eye sockets to exposed teeth, clearly unable to manage the crowd as easily as when he arrived.
The altars spread around the entire perimeter of the park. With every turn of a corner, a new face smiling back at me through a photograph sank in. Some, pictures of pets with cards from their owners wishing their “best friend” happiness in another life. String was hung between the span of two trees in layers, cards were clipped or folded in the hundreds, some with pictures, others with personal items left as an offering to their loved ones. They represented people lost this year, or any year. These cards represented a person living who missed someone who was no longer among us. It was as though we were standing at the gate that separated the worlds and we faced the world of the dead, hoping that they would recognize us and to assure them that we had not forgotten, that we would never forget them and that one day…we would join them.
That is the thought that changed everything for me. All of these years, I have been afraid of the unknown. I have grown up scared of what was to come, what happens to us all when we do pass over to another world that none of us know anything about, because the unknown is always a terrifying thing. But what I was lacking was a respect for the dead, and what I gained from this experience was to learn to celebrate them, because one day, it will be me staring out from a picture, dangling from a string, being studied by strangers.
As we turned another corner and passed to the back side of the park, a man was being comforted by a woman. He was on the ground sitting next to a large poster that was illuminated by the flickers of candles and a small accent light. The poster was covered in pictures of a beautiful woman smiling back at me. Like so many of the other pictures I had passed I knew that this woman had a name and that she had had a life; her life was now sitting in front of a poster adorned with her pictures, sobbing about how he would have to go through the rest of his life without her. This was a fresh wound and this man was letting anyone who wished to be apart of it, mourn with him, or for him, or for her, or themselves. I felt uncomfortable stopping to look at the display, but I also didn’t know what I was uncomfortable about.
This entire event is meant to bring a community together to celebrate those that have passed through to the other side. The dates of birth and death written on cards, and framed in pictures brought the inevitable to the forefront. My good friend Jessica wrote a message to her grandmother on a rose petal because we hadn’t thought to bring something, but somehow it was enough. I found myself scrambling to think of anyone I had lost in recent memory, but I drew a blank, faced with a complete sensory overload, yet now people I have lost over the years, family, come back to me and I regret not having remembered them that night.
I found myself wanting to cry, to be part of the mourning, to be part of the laughing and the celebration but I also felt like I was peeking into something that I shouldn’t be allowed to see. I had always known mourning to be private, something that you do with only the closest people to you, and something that you do sadly until the pain goes away and you move on. This was so very different than anything I have known my whole life and I am both happy that I was there to experience it and terribly sad for everyone who had lost someone. But I don’t remain sad for long knowing now that it is ok to celebrate those that we have lost. That the act of losing them is something that’s heartbreaking and terribly difficult to handle sometimes, but the act of celebrating their lives and who they were and year after year remembering those people and their spirit is so much better than running from it because where they are now is unknown and the unknown is hard to deal with.
Death is inevitable. It’s a hard pill to swallow but it will happen. This day brings me so much respect for the side we don’t know. To honor it and embrace it is something I was never taught how to do, but believe me when I say that I will never forget those that I have lost. No more will I pretend like nothing had ever happened, or how a memory was just a memory, or a ring is just a ring a woman wore long ago. The memories that I carry are what keep those spirits alive and the memories that others have and will have of me are what will keep me remembered when I’m gone.
The day of the dead. I highly recommend it…if you’re afraid of ghosts and all. Also don’t show up drunk you dumb fucks, it’s disrespectful.
The Wry Owl 