Last weekend people around the world - primarily in the Americas and especially in the area that was once part of the Aztec empire - celebrated Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Most of you are probably familiar with the holiday. It may be part of your culture, you may have learned about it from friends or in school, or maybe you saw the Disney movie Coco. I first learned about Dia de los Muertos when I moved to Arizona for graduate school in the 1990s (it didn't come up in my hometown of New Haven, Connecticut). I have celebrated the holiday, in one way or another since.
One of the most important ideas I take from the holiday is the Aztec belief that people die three times: when their heart stops, when they are buried, and when they are forgotten. It is this last death that is final. Many of the traditions of the Day of the Dead are meant to prevent this final death.
Every year, families visit graves of their loved ones. They clean the headstones, leave flowers and offerings, and tell stories about the deceased. Families construct altars in their homes with pictures of loved ones who have passed away. The altars include the loved ones’ favorite snacks or momentoes. They are living memories that invite the deceased back to join friends and families for an annual party. Families tell stories, laugh, cry, and again live with those who have passed on.
On Saturday I dusted off a picture of my great grandfather on my father's side whose career included everything from racing motorcycles, to growing oranges, to owning a chocolate shop in Redlands, California. I took down a tie that belonged to my dad's step-father, who dropped out of Harvard to join the OSS (the precursor to the CIA). I put on a cowboy hat from my great-aunt, who taught high school and for a time drove a classic jaguar and lived in a trailer in Malibu. I pulled down the picture of my mother's mother and stepfather. They moved to Connecticut in the 1960s from a working class neighborhood in London still recovering from WWII looking for economic opportunity, my mom joined them a few years later after she graduated from high school. My grandmother was a homemaker and spent a lot of time raising me and my sister, my grandfather was an eighth grade dropout who joined the Royal Navy and was twice stranded at sea while serving in the Second World War.
I spent time with other family and friends, raised toasts, told stories, and kept them all alive a little bit longer.