Autumn and Fall are such nice words to describe the most beautiful season in Illinois. I love this time of year as most of us do , but it also is a time of dying . Leaves turn a wonderful color and then fall off. The harvest is plentiful, but the corn stalks turn brown and brittle. My son’s dog died on Friday after a devastating illness. It was very sad to see such an active dog waste away. I also recently attended a funeral for my brother-in-laws sister. She was in her 80s and her health had gone steadily downhill over the last few years. The funeral service was a Catholic mass. The ritual was comforting, but the reality of death is ever present.
We are all going to die. You are going to die. I am going to die. What does that mean ? I still struggle with this as most of us do. I know this is the last third of my life and I keep focusing on the positives I have experienced, but the great unknown is still ahead. I wonder how I will be remembered?
In my culture there is always a wake. People come and say the usual comforting words to families and view the body. Some of our family wakes got quite loud and rambunctious. I remember one of our cousins from Ireland passed out in front of my father’s casket. At an uncle’s funeral, the procession to the cemetery got so out of control that people had to drive 70-80 miles an hour just to keep up with the hearse. After the burial there is always the luncheon. Sometimes this can go on for hours with much drinking, talking and remembering. The next day the reality of the loss begins to emerge. The loved one is no longer there and the family has to work thru this.
Customs are different depending on where you live. About 125 years ago in the Midwest, widows had to wear black for an entire year and really couldn’t go out unaccompanied. My grandmother wore black almost daily after my grandfather’s death until the day she died. Visits to cemeteries are quite frequent and emotional the first year. My mother would go almost weekly to visit my father’s grave. After she died we would go out occasionally to clean the headstones but now I cant remember the last time I visited the cemetery my parents are buried in.
How we remember and honor the dead is something that is not talked of much. We are more into the present than the past.. Halloween was originally called All Hallows Eve and the next day, All Saints Day, was the bigger feast. Now we celebrate Halloween where children and adults dress up in costumes, give candy to children, go to parties and even decorate our homes in neo frightful ways. Retailers report that this is one of the biggest holidays in their calendar year. One of my son’s neighbors seems to celebrate Halloween all year long. His garage is filled with monsters and skeletons. He frightens many of the children on the block and no one seems to know much about him. My son said he had some work done there over the summer and he wondered if even the contractors he hired were a little anxious about being around him. Halloween seems to be one of the only times we really think of death, but in a “fun” kind of way.
The Mexican tradition is certainly different. They celebrate the Day of the Dead on November 1st. This is a feast which involves actually going out to the cemetery and celebrating the lives of your ancestors. Some families decorate their family graves and even have family dinners around the tombstones.
Cemeteries here are very different. Most of the ones I know are very sad places. I haven’t seen a lot of happy times at the graveyard. There may be some effort to change this now. There was a recent story that one of the cemeteries in Washington DC has become a gathering place for young people. They try to schedule parties and even have film nights. I don’t know if I would be up for “Night of the Living Dead” at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery. I guess you really have to be in the mood.
Most of us forget our dead. Maybe we are remembered for one generation, rarely for two. I keep thinking of a cemetery in Alabama . A few years ago we visited an elderly cousin of my wife in Auburn Alabama. He began to talk of family history and told us that he knew where some of the distant relatives were buried. We agreed to go with him to visit this place. I remember walking thru overgrown forest and weeds until we came here:
It was an old family graveyard that no one had taken care of in years. Stones were cracked and many were almost unreadable.
I’m sure every one buried there had loved ones who missed them and cried over their deaths, but they were soon forgotten.
Maybe that is the way it is supposed to be, but I think the tradition of the Day of the Dead is a more positive way of celebrating and remembering. I have been saying for years now that I want to go out to the graves of my parents and grandparents. I think this year I will. Maybe I hope that my sons and their children will someday come out to mine. I don’t want any tears though. I really like the idea of a party and children playing around my grave as they hear family stories about some of the crazy things I did. The thought of adults and children laughing and celebrating will make me smile no matter where I am.
