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I recall Halloween as a kid. We costumed and begged for candy, but as we grew older, it took on a different tone, primarily one of destruction. Soaping windows was fun, but waxing was better. Setting fire to the dog turd containing paper bag, ringing a door bell, and watching from safe haven was great. If there were no imaginative tricks in mind, garbage cans always waited to be dumped. That construction saw horse placed in the middle of the street brought joy when a cop car ran into it. That was until those two fat cops ran faster than us, and I spent my first night in jail among others for more noble cause.
From begging candy to angering people, there was a deeper meaning. It was that kids could celebrate freedom from adults. It was a time set aside for them to express themselves however that may be. In my own adulthood, I always cherished the child aspect of Halloween. A hobby as an amateur magician added to it. There are many ways to produce candy from nothing or faked props.
That continued even until parents began bringing their own young children by to see the costumed clown who made the candy appear, as they had themselves enjoyed when children. Halloween remained my favorite holiday. When we retired and moved to Mexico, a daughter occupied the Illinois house, and said many asked on Halloween "Where's your father". He's an old man still celebrating night of the youth in Mexico.
Two nights ago as in other years here we had about 300 kids come by. They are mostly young ones here. The costumes are the same, but parents accompany the kids, and there is no destruction. It is a gringo holiday, to be sure, and not at all native to Mexico, but television has had the effect of merging cultures, at least in this regard.
November 2nd is another holiday, Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Someone asked by internet message if it corresponds to Halloween. The rest of this is framed from my response which was “No, not at all”.
Though Mexican children have grasped the US costume and trick or treat thing, many Mexicans regard Halloween as a sacrilegious mocking of Day of the Dead. It's an important holiday where families remember and honor those of them who have passed. It's a bridge through the generations and an essential part of a child’s home education.
Death is considered much differently here than in the US. It is as important a part of life as birth. It's dared, laughed at, slept with, and embraced. Life is sometimes considered a hectic race toward death and peace, but a short vacation from what we really are, dead. Octavio Paz has written extensively in that vein in his Nobel Prize winning book, Labyrinth of Solitude, the definitive description of the Mexican being. The drawings of skeletons by Jose Posada and others which mock politicians and social divisions are an ever present and important part of Mexican art.
Does a fly sit calmly for you to pick it up with your fingers? Perhaps it was an escaping fly who guided me toward atheism in realization that just like the fly, when you die, you die, but I have learned to respect with awe feelings of the living toward death. By considering what was and what will be, we can better know what we are and do the most with life while we have it.
On day of the dead, the cemeteries here are decorated with floral arrays and crowded with family all night parties complete with food and booze in the candle light. Vendors peddle snacks outside the cemetery gates. Parents drink and eat while children dash among the tomb stones as they eat sugar candies in the form of skulls and play with skeleton figurines and puppets. Each house has an altar with photos of the family dead and offerings of symbolic food and drink, the past favorites of the dead. They are intended to entice presence and company of the passed spirits, which will be welcomed as they imbibe of the offering's essences.
The celebrants will listen to those who have passed and take to heart what they have to say. It is hard for gringos, from a land where death is hushed and considered an end, to understand this, but in Mexico we have come to appreciate it. The mythology is spiritual and religious, but the real meaning goes deeper and relates to what we are today.
As a Gringo living here 16 years, to my surprise I have come to appreciate the sentiments celebrated on Dia de los Muertos. Being neither of the culture nor religious in an organized sense, we will do it in subdued fashion, but still will have a table in view outside with a candle lit picture of both our parents. It's a day to focus on remembering from where we've come and to whom we owe our all. We ponder how we've lived the life they've given us and ask ourselves how we've measured to their expectations. For a day at least, we'll be not as individuals of our own making but as part of a generation spanning continuum.
We are all dead but for brief respite. It is from those who longer suffer life that we can learn what we ought to be about today. It is that by which we in turn will be remembered tomorrow.
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