Today is Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. While this has always been a very important part of the Mexican calendar, in the past few years it has become increasingly popular in the U.S. as a way to honor departed loved ones in a ceremonial way. In the past, I have created fairly elaborate and traditional Dia altars, following all the instructions, to include three levels, food to ease the dead’s passage, marigold flowers, and all the other elements associated with the Mexican practice. This year, since I can’t even find our photo albums in all of our boxes and Chico does not have as many Hispanic citizens to provide all the pieces one needs for a “proper” altar, I have quickly produced a rather abbreviated version. I did want to carry on this ritual since we lost dearly loved ones this year. Below a few images of some of my past altars:
Altar 2021
2021 close up
Altar 2014
2014 close up
Along with remembrances of my family–my grandmother (the picture shows her in 1982 holding Max), my mother and father–this year I have had to include both of our aged cats, Zuma and Kolo 
We got both of them as 2-month-olds. Zuma was born in our back yard, and was captured by our neighbors, flea-bitten and dirty. After washing him up, they brought him to us, saying that we needed a cat. We were sunk; it had to be. Believing that cats need companions, we then went to the Humane Society and got Kolo (named for Koloman Moser, the Austrian “black and white” artist. Get it?). He was the spookiest cat we’ve ever had, running away from any visitor or loud noise, and he often forgot who we were. It took him years to figure out how to go through the cat door, while Zuma in his younger years was impossible to keep inside. It took me years to realize that in some odd way, Kolo was actually the alpha cat, while Zuma remained amiable and licked his head every night. We had them for 16 years, which was enormously longer than we had ever had any animal. As it became apparent that neither of them were going to survive a move to a location away from the only home they had known, and showing signs of failing health and dementia, they both crossed the Rainbow Bridge as we left Pasadena. They were good cats, and taught us a lot about animal behavior and unconditional love.
The greatest loss for me this year was my Australian friend, my first sponsor in AA, Pam Frost. She was immensely important to me in my early days of sobriety.
I know it’s considered a no-no by many in “the program” to break anybody’s anonymity, but since Pam is gone and since so many of her friends and colleagues were also in the program–she had many, many sponsees–I think it’s OK, at least it is to me. Pam & I clashed over this very issue–she was rigorous in maintaining anonymity, and chastised me for revealing my own participation in AA. But the program casts a wide net and embraces all opinions and beliefs–up to a point, I know. Aside from all her advice and powerful example of how to live a sober life, she and I became good friends. She taught me a lot about Australia, as we were also learning to be good Australians at the time. She grew up in The Malee of South Australia, near Nihill, and then in Portland, Victoria, the youngest of 10 children. She had a quick wit and a sharp mind. As she and her husband Dennis began to travel the world, they came to see us in Pasadena; the picture of them with George was taken at Point Vicente in Palos Verdes. She was immensely supportive of all my academic endeavors, came to all my public lectures and book launches. When we moved back to the States, we stayed in touch regularly, through emails, phone calls, and Facebook shares. It is still incomprehensible to me that she, of all people, got cancer–of an “unknown source”–and died, only 70. She managed to hang on until days after her 70th birthday. I miss her wisdom and caring spirituality. I hope she would be happy to know she is on my altar today–where there is, for her sake, no alcohol, either!
So for the spirits who are guiding all my loved ones in the afterlife, whatever that entails, just know that we remember you and love you, and your legacies live on.
I’ll close this one with a poem for Dia de los Muertos by Alberto Rios, poet laureate for Arizona:
November 2: Día de los muertos
1
It is not simply the Day of the Dead—loud, and parties.
More quietly, it is the day of my dead. The day of your dead.
These days, the neon of it all, the big-teeth, laughing skulls,
The posed calacas and Catrinas and happy dead people doing funny things—
It’s all in good humor, and sometimes I can’t help myself: I laugh out loud, too.
But I miss my father. My grandmother has been gone
Almost so long I can’t grab hold of her voice with my ears anymore,
Not easily. My mother-in-law, she’s still here, still in things packed
In boxes, her laughter on videotape, and in conversations.
Our dog died several years ago and I try to say his name
Whenever I leave the house—You take care of this house now,
I say to him, the way I always have, the way he knows.
I grew up with the trips to the cemetery and pan de muerto,
The prayers and the favorite foods, the carne asada, the beer.
But that was in the small town where my memory still lives.
Today, I’m in the big city, and that small town feels far away.
2
The Day of the Dead—it’s really the days of the dead. All Saints’ Day,
The first of November, also called the día de los angelitos—
Everybody thinks it’s Day of the Dead—but it’s not, not exactly.
This first day is for those who have died a saint
And for the small innocents—the criaturas—the tender creatures
Who have been taken from us all, sometimes without a name.
To die a saint deserves its day, to die a child. The following day,
The second of November, this is for everybody else who has died
And there are so many,
A grandmother, a father, a distant uncle or lost cousin.
It is hard enough to keep track even within one’s own family.
But the day belongs to everyone, so many home altars,
So many parents gone, so many husbands, so many
Aunt Normas, so many Connies and Matildes. Countless friends.
Still, by the end of the day, we all ask ourselves the same thing:
Isn’t this all over yet?
3
All these dead coming after—and so close to—Halloween,
The days all start to blend,
The goblins and princesses of the miniature world
Not so different from the ways in which we imagine
Those who are gone, their memories smaller, their clothes brighter.
We want to feed them only candy, too—so much candy
That our own mouths will get hypnotized by the sweetness,
Our own eyes dazzled by the color, our noses by the smells
The first cool breath of fall makes, a fire always burning
Somewhere out there. We feed our memories
And then, humans that we are, we just want to move quickly away
From it all, happy for the richness of everything
If unsettled by the cut pumpkins and gourds,
The howling decorations. The marigolds—cempasúchiles—
If it rains, they stink, these fussy flowers of the dead.
Bread of the dead, day of the dead—it’s hard to keep saying the word.
4
The dead:
They take over the town like beach vacationers, returning tourists getting into everything:
I had my honeymoon here, they say, and are always full of contagious nostalgia.
But it’s all right. They go away, after a while.
They go, and you miss them all over again.
The papel picado, the cut blue and red and green paper decorations,
The empanadas and coconut candy, the boxes of cajeta, saladitos,
Which make your tongue white like a ghost’s—
You miss all of it soon enough,
Pictures of people smiling, news stories, all the fiestas, all this exhaustion.
The coming night, the sweet breads, the bone tiredness of too much—
Loud noise, loud colors, loud food, mariachis, even just talking.
It’s all a lot of noise, but it belongs here. The loud is to help us not think,
To make us confuse the day and our feelings with happiness.
Because, you know, if we do think about our dead,
Wherever they are, we’ll get sad, and begin to look across at each other.
Tags: Cats, Day of the Dead, Dia de los muertos, Remembrances
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