The Day of the Dead

Among the many Texans who celebrate  Dios de los muertos with altars, flowers, photos, and memorabilia, my friend Pam makes it an art form.  

Tonight she invited a few friends to dinner and asked us to bring pictures and stories of friends and family members who are no longer with us.  I made a pound cake--my daddy's favorite--and goulash. He'd have been 100 this year. Here's a man I could talk about for hours, but suffice it to say, every time I tell a story about this dearly loved man, it's as if I bring him back for those who didn't get to know him. 

On a table and a piano, Pam had arranged photos so festively you'd have thought it was a party of living people who might show up--her parents and grandparents, her sister and her sister's husband, a former colleague from her teaching days, her son Tommy and her former husband, many friends, even her daughter's beloved dog. I loved hearing her tell stories about these people, all but one of whom I'd never actually met. 

In a bowl on her coffee table, there were more pictures, poems, handwritten notes, an award ceremony honoring her friend Ruth shortly before her hundredth birthday. Another friend--fit and healthy "who did everything right"--died in his forties. 

Day of the Dead is a lovely tradition.  In a way, all the people do show up! What they loved and brought to the world shows up.  Their quirks and habits show up.  For an hour or more, the living and the dead have a party, celebrating who they were (and still are) to us. 

I came home and searched for pictures of others I love who are no longer living: my grandparents, my Uncle David, my dog Tony (and a few other sweet dogs),  Brooke and Meredith (daughters of two of my best friends), Julianne Moore ("not that Julianne Moore" she always said) Mary Frances Weathersby, my yoga teacher and dear friend, Gary Lane, poet and teacher and piano-player who entertained residents of nursing homes with the music of their youth, Lea Glisson, the oldest and one of the funniest and liveliest members of my writing groups, and Jan's wonderful husband Gene, my next-door neighbor. 

As the song goes, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends...." 

Lloyd Harris, my daddy
Teaching Will to play guitar, early 1990s

May 2001
Our last visit
I wore this watch to Pam's party tonight....