Hi, Mom.
I don’t know if you’d like our house right now. It’s all decorated for Halloween. We have orange lights wrapped around the posts and ghosts hanging in the trees. And, in accordance with our Bible times of olden days, each of the ghosts represents someone who has died. Our trees are pretty full this year.
I wonder if you would think more highly of this practice of ours, now that you are a resident of Heaven.
So this year, our live oak tree has you and Uncle Don and Grandad and Frankie and Nan and Lois and Katie Stevens and Quinn Kott and Grandpa John and Grandma Sally and Sandra and I’m not sure who else J.J. made a ghost for. Scott helped hang them high.
If we’re wrong in our theology, please know that you all are still with us in ways that I can’t understand. We know that someday we will join you. We also know that the Holy Spirit lives in us, and He’s kind of ghost-y.
This is our family’s way of saying to the world that we know death is real. It sucks, so you might as well go door to door and beg for chocolate. I’m told that hot Doritos and hot Cheetos are the cool snacks in our neighborhood, so I’ll probably hand out those to the Hannah Montanas and zombies who come to our door.
And since you were such a Latina in your soul, after your stints in Mexico and Chile, I’m thinking of celebrating Día de los Muertos, just for you. I bet I can find a bakery in town that makes calaveras, and I’m sure H-E-B will be selling marigolds.
You’re missed, Mom. And every trick-or-treater who comes to our house Sunday night will know it. You ghost is the only one on the front porch.
love, Megan
(to see how my mom celebrated one of her last Halloweens, see the poem at the side titled “Dia de los Muertos.”)
