Tag Archives: Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead

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1953

Click on photos to enlarge.

Day of the Dead

It is that spooky time of year when dead folk walk about.
They lasso wild horses to ride, without a doubt.
They leave their earthy prisons and slake their appetites
with dead bread and with other toothsome proffered bites.
Their crimson eyes shine brightly this one night of the year,
as they slake their year-long thirsts for mescal or for beer.

Each year their thoughtful mortals replenish altars nightly,
putting out their favorite brews and foods for them, politely.
They fill town squares with altars that honor friends departed,
revealing that their memories have remained open-hearted.
Candles light their way for them and marigolds form highways
that mark their paths toward friendly altars from their ghostly byways.

Dia de los Muertos is that night that spirits roam,
renewing those past pathways that have led their footsteps home.
If you doubt their coming, view their pathways in the morning
to see how they have visited you, silent, without warning.
Some say it is the field mice that have nibbled on the bread,
but those of faith know that it was their beloved ones instead!

Prompt words today are replenish, prison, crimson, spooky, and politely.

Small Comforts

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If you read my post yesterday, you know that we lost Diego on Saturday. When I took him to the vet thinking he had a bad tooth, I discovered his lungs were actually riddled with cancer and we had to make the decision to save him from a more agonizing slow death over the next two weeks. Obviously, I was devastated and as I completed the shrine for my friend Gloria, who died a few weeks ago and my husband Bob and parents as well as my sister Betty and her husband Denis, Leah and Ryan completed side shrines for their own departed family and shrines.

On Sunday, we went to a talk about death and the importance of making our life all we wish it to be and approaching Dia de Muertos as a celebration of our lost loved ones rather than a mourning. We then went to lunch and as we left the restaurant, we decided to visit a small crafts fair we saw set up in a tent a short way away. As Leah and Ryan browsed the aisles, I was drawn to a booth of small rescue dogs available for adoption. I watched little boys playing with five small pit bull puppies and then saw a beautiful woman approach with a small chocolate brown dog almost the twin sister to Zoe. She explained that it, too, was a rescue dog she’d found abandoned on the streets of Guadalajara. Her name was Chocolate and she was presumed to be about a year old. When she was spade, they had discovered she was pregnant with three puppies, all too small for survival.

Wanting to show her to Ryan and Leah, I asked if I could take her for a walk, and the lady said yes. I thought I would say I’d found a new dog, jokingly, but of course the joke was on me as we all fell in love with her. It was all Ryan could do to keep Leah from adopting one of the tiny pit bull puppies. At any rate, with no idea at all of replacing Diego, the synchronicity of finding a dog named Chocolaté—the same name as the dog stolen from my yard nineteen years before—who needed a home just as Diego had eleven years before, created the decision to honor Diego’s leaving with the arrival of another in need of a home, and so we welcomed Chocolaté into our lives as a living memorial to Diego. R.I.P.. dear friend and companion.

This morning, Chocolate claims Zoe’s favorite spot, nuzzled into Mom’s neck and hair.

Small Comforts

On this particular Dia de los Muertos, death feels more personal, less a remembrance of past losses and more a dwelling with a recent one. The new little dog buries herself closer, her snout beneath my neck, nose snuggled into my hair. Her long pointed ear brushes my glasses frame.

Finally stilled from the excitement of a new sister who is nearly a reflected shadow of herself, Zoe sleeps in the long cavern between my knees and ankles so I am swaddled in small dogs. Not a recompense for the loss of my old friend Diego, but rather a slight adjustment of attention, a comfort of sorts, consolation like the hug of that stranger in the vet’s office yesterday morning, after we had sent Diego to his final sleep.

Not the same thing as Diego’s past gentle nuzzles for attention as I lay in the hammock, fitting in those moments of mutual attention before Zoe’s insertion of herself between us, demanding attention from us both. Here is no filling of an empty space, but rather the creation of a new one in my life. One not unaccompanied by problems, for although she shares Diego’s calm exterior, she also shares Zoe’s propensity for mischief. Minutes after we arrived home from the craft fair where I found her attached to the leash of the Guadalajara vet who had rescued her from the street and harbored her as she looked for a new home for her, I found her on top of the the altar, eating the dead bread in front of my friend Gloria’s picture, ignoring the dog bones in front of Diego’s. The papel picado on the front of the altar had been shredded by her ascent, the pot of marigolds turned on its side. 

Just that morning, Zoe had stood to snatch the bread from in front of the side altar Ryan had constructed for his grandmother and friend. Peas in a pod, these two chiweenies, one blonde, one the color of chocolate, like her name, pronounced Chahcōlah’tay, in the Spanish manner. 

Now as I lie in bed, this new intruder whistles into my ear with each breath, huffing as though it is an effort, or like blowing out birthday candles, puff by puff. It is a trial joining. If it doesn’t work out, I have the kind doctor’s phone number who promises to drive back from Guadalajara to reclaim her. She breathes wheezingly into my ear, as though one time for each second of her short life. 

I recall Diego’s gentled breathing there on the floor of the vet’s office. All of us coming down to her comfortable level as we administered that last relief, her lungs filled with a foreshadowing of an otherwise more painful death. So it is myself I cry for as the tears slide out again––an indulgence I can’t seem to stop. The new small dog adjusts her ear away as my sideways tears drip onto it. She nuzzles closer, and Zoe digs herself deeper. Small comforts in an inevitable world.

 

The day I adopted Coco
Ryan gives attention to Morrie.
Uninterested in Diego’s former bed in the doggie domain, Chocolate claims Zoe’s bed.
Zoe joins her.
Later, I come out to find Chocolate atop the altar, having consumed the dead bread. Marigolds upended,
Papel picado shredded.
This morning, Chocolate claims Zoe’s favorite spot, nuzzled into Mom’s neck and hair.

 

While looking for my favorite photo of Diego, which I still haven’t found, I came upon this laudatory poem written in his honor a few years ago, so it seemed fitting to publish it again. Here is a link: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2020/05/08/hail-diego/

R.I.P.

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We came early, on October 31, to avoid the crowds of Nov. 1 and 2. Friends came to help me decorate the graves. Beer, water, dead bread, chocolate and marigolds completed the decor and la offrendas. Then we used our extra marigold petals to decorate several other graves that seemed as though no one was going to remember them. Today there were a few dozen families decorating the graves of loved ones. Tomorrow it will be busy and on Nov. 2 even busier.

DOD Altar

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This is my very understated Day of the Dead altar for Bob and my folks:

Dem Bones

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Dem Bones

The skeletons are all tucked in, safely in their beds
with naughty vitriolic dreams swirling through their heads.
Their atrocious behavior saved for another day,
they will not raise a ruckus. They’re holding it at bay.
They’re resting up for Halloween which is the night that they
will throw aside their covers and come out to play!

 

Prompt words today are ruckus, vitriol, atrocious, play and skeleton.

Memory Tree: Sunday Trees, Nov 17, 2019

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Click any photo to enlarge photos. For Sunday Trees

Day of Flowers: DOD 2019

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Day of Flowers: Day of the Dead, Ajijic, Mexico

 

Click on first photo to enlarge all

On Friday, I went to decorate the burial plot that I adopted three years ago. Earlier, Oscar and Pablo had cleared out the weeds for me and  Yolanda and I went Friday with flowers and to clean off the grave stones as well as to shovel out dirt that had fallen down from ground level onto the grave on the right. When we arrived, there were three young Mexican girls looking at our plot. They were very curious about who the people were who were buried there, since they had Anglo names, so I told them as much as forgottenman and I have been able to discover about the three people. Then a man from Guadalajara came and asked more questions.

When I started to go down to see about removing the dirt, (this plot of three graves is actually sunk down below ground level about four feet) one young girl said to wait and came back with a young man with a shovel who said he would clear out the dirt slide for me. He did hard labor in the sun for over a half hour, even removing stones and rocks that seemed impossible to dig up. When he left and I tried to pay him, he refused, even though I offered the money the traditional three times. It seems the boys from his school had come in a group to help out anyone who needed it. What a heartwarming experience.

The gravestones cleaned, the marigolds placed, we left and I returned the next day with Leslie, who had strung the papel picado for me that morning. We strung it around the fence surrounding the graves, then lit candles and arranged the dead bread, wine coolers for the women and a bottle of beer for the man, chocolate and more sprays of cloth flowers. Four musicians played very near by us the entire time. People came strolling by to talk. Scorching in the sun, we climbed up and sought the cooler shade. We walked around a bit and as you can see, there was no lack of flowers wherever we looked.

For Cee’s FOTD

Day of the Dead

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IMG_1717IMG_1718Halloween, The Morning After

(If you want to see the beginning of this story, go HERE.)

Flower of the Day, Nov 15, 2016

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Just one of the thousands of floral displays at the Ajijic Cemetery, Nov, 2016.

Now, you have to see THIS posting of a magnolia blossom by Cee.

R.I.P. (JNW’s Halloween Challenge, Graveyard)

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Last year, I did a post about a neglected gravesite that I adopted, cleared and decorated.  Yesterday, I went back to check on it and this is what I found:

(Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.)

It just one place, I could see enough of a headstone to make out the name.
A lantana tree had found a home here
as had a vivid morning glory vine.

I guess I have my work cut out for me again this year, although underneath the volunteer foliage, I made out the much-enlarged forms of aloe plants I planted last year.  Perhaps I’ll find some of the sun roses, as well, once I’ve cleared away a bit.

I had made the mistake of coming in through the front entrance of this large graveyard, and since the plot I adopted last year was at the very back, it was hard work finding my way back uphill through the maze of graves back to my car. Time and again, I came to a dead end, my way blocked by a huge crypt or fenced off area. There seem to be no clearly defined paths, but on my circuitous way back, I came upon this little grave even bleaker in its surroundings than that of my adopted departeds, although marked by a Virgin of Guadalupe that was beautifully patinaed by age:

The prompt today is “graveyard.”