Dia de los Muertos time is nigh.

I did get the ofrenda up.

I did not hang the papel picado all across my ceiling as in other years.

Or make the traditional bread… though that one I still have time on.

No, instead I dragged myself across the desert for days upon days and with shaking hands at least was able to put up the arch and set up a decent alter.

I am very proud of it.

Also, and this was of course going to be a huge thing… I have not added in any new pictures in the last year and a half aside from my husband’s. In that time I also lost my mother, my mother in law, and my dog.

I regret not getting a picture up of the dog in time.

Is that one of the most heartless things you’ve heard? Well my little babies, I do what I do. Rest assured much thought was paid to this. And my conclusion, at the end of all this thinking, is that anyone (ANYONE) who made losing my husband harder on me during the depths of my despair doesn’t get welcomed into my home.

I did ask all the children, and said if they wanted their grandmothers pictures up I would absolutely add them- and to a one they said “of course not.” Their grandmothers were no comfort to them in their grief, either. Caring matriarchs were on backorder in 2024, turns out. The girls don’t forget. And they also had a front row view to a couple of things said grandmothers put their mother though. The children were very protective of me (and me of them) in those early days. They noticed.

Certainly if that changes for them, at any point, I will put the pictures up in future years (till they are out of the house, at least) but for now… yeah. A couple of intentional omissions.

This, I knew would happen and now did, created pushback.

My brother was incredulous I didn’t have mom up there. I told him my reasons and said he is more than welcome to have her on his. To which he kinda stuttered and said he didn’t put an alter up. And so I shrugged my shoulders (through the phone) and told him not to tell me what to put on mine then.

I posted pictures of the ofrenda on Instagram and also knew I was gonna catch shit from one or more of Lucas’s aunts… which (more fools, them) happened in the comments. The very same aunt who had her sister’s number and complained or commiserated with us about her many, many times over the years… and yet I got asked where her picture was.

My reply was as calm as I could be but boils down to: “WE FUCKING DOING THIS PUBLICLY? AL’IGHT…”

It was not all caps, please know. I am aware I am talking to people who love her when I talk about her. So I tried to be as nice as I could while also being a werewolf howling at the moon in rage at the insane gall of it all.

There have been no replies.

My father has been by a few times and looked at the ofrenda but not commented. Small victory there, at least.

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And LOOK. I had to really and truly spend time on this. I don’t want to be petty. I am trying to heal over here. I have released the anger. I wish them well on their journeys. I also went: I can’t.

I had to listen to the small voice inside- to really listen to what I wanted here. Me. And the truth, simply, is that I don’t want them there. These people hurt me or my husband over and over again across the decades. This is no one time misstep in a sea of beauty and light. At the core of things I do not want them here.

If they wanted a spot in my home or heart they should have been nicer, tis all, tis all. They certainly had ample opportunity.

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Just another example, in the sea of them, that people feel they get to comment on such matters to grievers up in this bitch. Like seriously, the most prying things get asked, the unsolicited advice is plentiful, and that you are such a topic of conversation is really and truly the most fucking jarring thing imaginable. And the criticism! My god it’s well and truly insane.

Sigh. This particular topic is not the only thing this has all been happening about, just know.

I think that people, intentionally or unintentionally, think that if they comforted you in the early days that they earned their right to the later comments as time goes by. That when you were vulnerable the boundary gates were cast wide or torn down, and that it all still remains as such.

Something is so jarring about all of it. I cannot just try to live without commentary from the peanut gallery. And I am (rightly, not paranoid-ly) feeling very looked at and weighed and measured. At it’s core I think people just put themselves in your shoes and then extrapolate what they would do differently- and therefore you are doing it wrong if you make other choices. And that I understand. It’s the part where they SAY IT that it goes too far. I, luckily (FOR ME, NOT FOR HIM) have a cousin who went through this all already and who I can talk to about such things. And that helps immensely.

Anyway. I am trying to do the inner work and gird up the defenses so I can survive it and everything else, you know? While also trying to not like… blow it out of proportion and make a mountain out of each and every molehill. And also letting people’s expectations not hurt me or guide my own actions. All while I try to heal.

But at the very core of things y’all just know I am the howling werewolf and the mewling babe and the studious worker and the dutiful mom and the hurt person stumbling about while clutching their bleeding side after being stabbed… all at the same time.

I contain multitudes, yo’.

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Anyway.

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Lots else to talk about, but man… I don’t need to give anyone whiplash so I guess we’ll leave it there.

Just know that at the end of the day all of this hasn’t ruined the core of things for me, here and now, for the holiday. The incense coiling about the photos of my much loved dead, the candles flickering…. there is peace at the center of it all. And joy, in a way, to be found in the section of my house I have carved out to welcome these spirits in. The rituals hold and are a comfort.

I may have a new chapter to add to my book about the holiday, though. Perhaps an addendum, of sorts. We shall see.