Dia de los Muertos came and went. We had the candles and incense on in the evening and put fresh marigolds out as well. I also ripped up a couple of marigold flowers and scattered the petals down the front steps and walkway all the way to the street. Tradition is to do that from the cemetery all the way to your door… but as that would be hundreds of miles, points north, south, east, and west, as well as all the way to the ocean itself… to the road will have to do in a “close enough” and “all roads lead to Rome” kinda way.
That morning I had put the pan de muertos bread out and at some point mid-day the damn dog had eaten it right off the ofrenda like an absolute asshat. He had a very bad night’s sleep that night- I’d like to think it was from spirits kicking him for his disrespect… but most likely it was from the 2 pounds of bread in his guts. At least he was surgical in getting the bread off the alter without knocking anything down, or having stomach upset issues that needed clean up the next day… the bar is really low with this one, as you can see. Anyway. We all got through, a little fraught, but mostly good.
During the day on the 2nd I got a wild hair while all the children were with friends so I took off to go wander through a few of the historic cemeteries I hadn’t been to before outside of our town… had been a while since I’d been out and about in a cemetery and it seemed like the day for it.
It was very pretty out there.
I also found this:
Hard to read but it’s George Washington’s grandnephew’s grave. He lived through the civil war. I don’t know why that timeline strikes me, but it does. Really hammers home how soon after the Revolutionary War the Civil War was- it was less than 100 years later, after all. I guess it’s the fact that photography got invented between the two makes it seem like the timing should be farther apart. And how the hell this guy ended up in Texas… who knows. Also, you think it’s just that guy’s descendants who erected this headstone in 2005 who played up the relationship, or do you think he name dropped being George Washington’s grandnephew himself?
Weirdly, in the first row of the first of the three cemeteries I went to that afternoon, I found my first cousin’s grave. (lot of firsts there… including him being the first of my cousins on this side of the family to die.) He died when I was on maternity leave with my oldest in 2006. She’s in college now. I never knew what cemetery he was in but I would have SWORN it was one of the modern ones and not front row in one of the historic ones. I hadn’t driven us to the service, my husband had, all those years ago… I had a vague concept it was east of town (it was) but that was about it. My husband remembered though- he visited my cousin a couple of times on his way home from work when the urge struck him- I always loved that he did that. And we’d talked about going out together and then just never did. I’d always meant to, I promise I had. I loved my cousin very much. And now I did visit him and on Dia de los Muertos itself.
It was a surreal feeling, though. That it was on that day, unplanned, and then how quickly I turned a corner and found him. I guess somewhere in the reaches of the brain I had somehow known… it didn’t FEEL like it though. It all felt very surprising. But it was nice to see him again, of course. I talked to him for a while, told him I loved him, felt bad I hadn’t come with flowers or shells or anything, and then got chased out of the cemetery by a quick rain shower that passed before I got to explore that cemetery much more than that.
Hard to see but there was a vertical rainbow in the rearview mirror as I drove away off to the next cemetery.
There were some really nice cemeteries that day, all worthy of a bit more exploring when it isn’t so muddy, getting dark, and feeling haunted as shit. This is not a hobby for a day you’re feeling even the slightest bit skittish, I’ll tell you that.
Anyway. It was good.
Back to the other side of that particular holiday, to the other holiday before it: I have to show you my youngest’s Halloween costume.
This was the request list she gave me from Amazon- we got those in weeks ahead of Halloween- she meticulously planned this whole thing very early. She also made a breastplate thing from cardboard, elastic, and fabric that had a bunch of beads draped off it. I could not WAIT to see what she had planned with all of this.
This was no crappy kiddie project, oh no. She pulled this together with skill and vision! Look at this flawless execution!
No one has any idea what she is, and I’m pretty sure that includes her. But it looked awesome.
She even won the Most Creative Costume award at a party we popped into downtown after trick or treating (We went with my oldest {the 16 year old went with her friends} and some of our neighborhood friends). The voting for the contest wasn’t even close and she was competing against adults too! She’s nine. God I love all three of these kids- they’ve all been insanely creative like this over the years and she’s keeping up the tradition.
In other news: did I show you my new kitchen cactus?
I LOVE IT.
The staghorn fern that hung in the corner over my dishwasher got mealy bugs, and while I successfully treated that infestation, once it was better I passed the plant along to my brother where it’s much happier on his more humid balcony in Houston.
You know who’s also happy when he hangs out on that same balcony? This guy! Good ol’ French Fry has grown a lot since April.
He’s a big-boy, teenager cat now and so, so handsome! Also- my god in April the lights were still basically out in my eyes… woof, look at that pic. April and May (all of it, who are we kidding) were hard… it’s okay that they were, mind you. Reasonable even. But it does show.
When I tell you this little guy is a fan of mine… well. Let me show you from my most recent trip out that way for work earlier this week.
That was how he slept all night.
There is something to being loved by someone else’s cat that will make you feel like King Arthur drawing the sword outta the stone or like your soul must be extra, extra pure, you know?
Speaking of cats: here’s Alabama.
For how skittish he is outside he sure cuts loose and sleeps comfortably and relaxed (if that’s what we call that position) when he is inside. I also am a fan of this, and feel it too reflects well on my soul that this former stray who is still nervous of people can sleep so deeply like that right next to me. Pfft. Look at this asshole over here: “Everything reflects well on me and means the Universe smiles on me, meh!” I mean… take it when you can get it, is what I say.
In “it has been going on behind the scenes for a while” news- my company was acquired and so I have a new company identity to wrap my head around and many new coworkers to learn about and for them to learn about me. And it’s so funny to me that such an innocuous question as “What do you do for fun” or “what are your hobbies” can be kinda hard to answer in grief. These are common icebreaker questions! Nothing even very prying!
But this week I had answers when those kind of questions popped up. Hobbies are things you find fun, and hey, look at that- things are sometimes (dare I say… often?) fun again? This change seems to have come right before those questions started… or at least my awareness of that fact. And my god… my god would I not have thought it was going to ever be possible, back in May of 2024, for anything to ever be fun again.
So there I was this week… able to answer about things I found fun, and what hobbies I have… huh. Had these questions been asked 6 months ago I probably could have only answered that “grief” was my hobby. It was over a year pretty solely focused on grief work and where nothing made me happy or sparked interest.
But anyway. It felt… light… to be able to answer those questions pretty easily this week. To hold up a handful of things even! To have added a new hobby in to the mix on top of even that… because new things are interesting me these days and I have the energy to pursue them. (Said new hobby? Knife throwing. I got a target for the backyard and a couple sets of throwing knives and my goodness am I bad at this right now… but I don’t even find that discouraging.)
Anyway- it was also a week of trying not to trauma dump when people were asking about family… I think I threaded the needle of explaining things and not looking like I was looking for sympathy or unloading on people… I think I did it all okay, but my goodness it sure can be a weird ol’ life to navigate sometimes.
And I kinda guess this next thing is a hobby too? I buy fresh flowers for the living room weekly and I post them and their Victorian Flower Language meanings on Instagram… you know- regular churn of content for my 94 followers. lol. (I keep it set to private and curated, mind you.) But it sure makes a pretty lil’ regular pop of color in the camera roll.
So many of the flower meanings are similar to each other in themes of love or devotion or affection- very slight nuances between many of them. But that yellow carnations mean disdain and orange lilies mean hatred make me unreasonably happy to know about.
I don’t always know the meanings when I buy them, mind you. I look them up when I get home- so I love when it’s a surprising or unusual meaning.
Anyway. I don’t want to spend too much time on it, as this whole healing thing isn’t linear and hard times will come again, but life has the feel of… how to describe it. Have you ever been the first one into an office or warehouse and flicked the switch and the fluorescent hum of lights starts before they turn on and then they start flickering a few at a time, always on the other side of the room? Life feels like that right now.
What a feeling.
All these small things, or moments of happiness and interest… they strike me, every time I catch myself in them, as if they make Lucas smile. I know he approves. There are folks in grief who resent when people tell them “He wouldn’t want you to be sad.” And I get that implies that you’re doing it wrong if you’re being sad… but it never struck me like that. I know, better than anyone, that those words are the simple truth. That Lucas would want me to be happy and live and find things interesting and funny again- of COURSE he would, and does. And so I have no guilt for those feelings when they hit, in fact it makes me feel good to know I’m doing the things he’d want for me. As if doing so makes him proud.
Besides. What is that quote- if a bit of their soul lives on in us than it’s up to us to show them things they never got to see? I rephrase that a bit to: “gotta keep the ghost husband entertained” and so pull myself up from the occasional bout of bedrotting or tears and go… okay. That’s gotta be really boring to watch… lets change that channel for him. Then I get up and do something that might be more entertaining, and it’s what I needed in my own soul for healing, too.
Time may not heal all wounds… but maybe motion will get you close. I keep moving forward is all- sometimes at a jog or a stumble or a crawl… but forward nonetheless. And it feels like healing while I do it.
Anyway. Here I’ll leave you, as I do frequently, with some memes and random pics from the week.
Till next time.
the something garden 
“Gotta keep the ghost husband entertained” has to be one the best and most unique sentences I’ve ever read. That blend of pathos and bathos is one of the reasons I love your writing so much.
French Fry!!!! Such a pretty boy. I love his sleeping position. Scarf or noose, hard to say.
Oh, dogs. This cracked me up: “he had a very bad night’s sleep that night- I’d like to think it was from spirits kicking him for his disrespect… but most likely it was from the 2 pounds of bread in his guts.” But oh how frustrating it must have been to discover his theft.
Pathos and bathos has seen me through, that’s for sure! And thank ya!