Dia de los Muertos

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Every year I host a pumpkin carving party and sometimes and sometimes a costume party as well. Since I was 18 I have always gone as someone who had died in an unusual or corny way. Morbid I know, but that is the kind of sense of humor our family has.

It all started when I was 18 and went as a Dead librarian who had Died of Boredom. It was so well received and also considered so odd that I was hooked and each year planned my costume at length, sometimes taking months to settle on a good idea. Over the years I have been Dorothy Parker after a Suicide Attempt, The Wicked Witch of the East (who gets smooshed by Dorothy's house), A Dead Dominatrix who was Strangled (by one of her clients), A Twisted Sister Groupie Who Overdosed, A Gypsy who wasn't so lucky with Snake Charming, A Flamenco Dancer Who Tripped and Broke Her Neck, Goldie Locks If The Bears got Her, Little Bo Peep Stampeded By Sheep, Little Miss Muffett Bitten By Spiders, and many others. I have won contests and confused and amused people for years.

Last year Dad died five days before Halloween. I canceled my pumpkin carving party because I was basically a zombie. I was functioning, but was in no place to put on a happy hostess face and encourage adult pumpkin carving like I had since 1997 (my first carving party). I was so numb I considered not celebrating Halloween at all but knew that was wrong. I learned after losing my mother at a young age the worst thing you can do after a terrible loss is to stop living, to stop doing the things you love to do. The best way to honor the dead is to live because by living they continue to as well through you. I was a little worried people might think my usual dead theme would be to much or even inappropriate, but I had already planned my costume and even talked to Dad about it (he always got a good laugh out of my bad pun costumes). So I joined my good friend Darnell and his boyfriend and other friends and went to West Hollywood where the big Halloween stuff goes down in Los Angeles (its a hard and fast rule that when in a major city the best Halloween party will always be in what is considered the gay district). I went as a College Student who had Studied Her Brains Out. We ran around the very crowded West Hollywood for several hours and while I can not say I was totally present or completely enjoyed myself, I am glad I went.

From the moment Dad died that week I had become obsessed with getting a tattoo that I had said I would get for him one day. Three years after my mother died my full sister Rhea and I got "mother" in Japanese Kanji tattooed on our left shoulder on Mother's Day. We had wanted to get a sister tattoo but could not agree on what to get, so had settled on the Kanji symbol after much debate. Rhea and I are so different we couldn't figure out anything else we both wanted on our bodies forever linking us as sisters other than our mother. We chose the Kanji because we thought she would have liked that more than the heart with the ribbon through it (though we were both very tempted to get that instead). When we showed Dad the tattoo he had liked it and many times over the years had asked when he'd get his, as in when we'd get "father" in Kanji. I had always said, don't worry, you'll get yours someday. So, the day after Halloween last year, on Dia de los Muertos, I went in and got "father" in Japanese Kanji on my right arm. Later both Rhea and Krista had said I should have waited for them, but I was overwhelmed with the need to get it and to get it on Dia de los Muertos. It is a day that we are suppose to honor and remember the dead, and that is just what I had to do.

This year I continued with my annual traditions and had my pumpkin carving party as well as wen out on Halloween. This year I went as a Dia de los Muertos doll, rather than my usual f/punny deaths that I like. Again, for whatever reason it was the only thing I was drawn to and wanted to be. This time of year will always be bitter sweet for me now, but I hope to what both my parents would have wanted me to do: to keep on living and celebrating life.