I call it Samhain now, not Halloween (pronounced “SOW-en” or “SOW-ain”). That is one of many changes that have occurred in me over the course of the last month. I first learned about Samhain while studying Celtic culture and festivals with Rena last year. It was one of two festivals during which every fire in the village would be put out (a big deal in the centuries before matches or central heating systems, when fire was the key to surviving the impending winter). The more powerful of the local druids would then call down fire to light a communal bonfire, from which every hearth in every house in the village would be lit. It was a symbol of cleansing and renewal before the long season of darkness. And in the dying light of the sun the people felt the shadows of those no longer present. It was said that, at Samhain, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest, most permeable. As the days grow shorter I find myself becoming increasingly aware of ghosts—my own, to be exact. The ghosts of my past selves crowd the edges of my consciousness, staring in horror and troubled fascination at the stacks of books on paganism and witchcraft that I am weekly checking out of the library. The same expressions are mirrored in the eyes of the librarians, all good Christian women I would imagine. My children are probably now on the prayer chain of half a dozen churches in the area, if they actually care as much as they judge. It is as though I, myself, have passed over some insubstantial threshold. To those on the other side I am either invisible or disturbing. A ghost of the proper, conservative, homeschooling mom I was supposed to become. It is both refreshing and eerie.
I had meant to spend Samhain putting my ghosts to rest. I imagined a day of reflective contemplation, writing letters to my past selves in hopes of reconciling myself, now, with the girls and women I have been in the past three decades whose voices still whisper a faint hope that they will be heard, listened to, understood, accepted. I imagined a fire once the day had turned to intimate darkness. I imaged that I would sit by it, companionably alone with my ghosts, sealing the new understanding between us by burning the private words we had shared. I imagined a serene cleansing, a laying to peaceful rest the unquiet voices I no longer wished to hear. I imagined a parting of ways.
Instead, the day dawned late, and rainy. We had been gone late the night before and dragging myself and then the girls out of our blanket cocoons and into the dreary day was more than could be accomplished in good order. From breakfast on I was perpetually late: late dropping the annoyingly virile daddy rabbit off at his new home by way of permanent prevention of further surprise litters, late to my dentist appointment, late getting back home so I didn’t have time to clean up the disgustingly dirty rabbit room before the new adopters came to pick out the three bunnies (hallelujah!) they were taking off my hands, late getting lunch, late to my orthodontist appointment, late getting from there to the chiropractor, late turning in paperwork for my girls’ chiropractor appointments, so late finally getting back home that the girls scattered to play by themselves while I curled miserably up in a blanket on the couch and sipped tea.
It should have been a great day. I had lost a front tooth two years ago that had been weakened in a bicycle accident when I was eighteen and I hadn’t been able to replace the tooth until now because I was in braces, for the second time in my life, and an implant, once placed, cannot be shifted the way living teeth can. I had spent the last two years stuffing a gob of white wax into my top Invisalign tray and pretending it was a tooth, which worked pretty well as long as my teeth weren’t too stained or I had to eat. The dentist appointment was to get my crown. Finally, FINALLY, I could smile in a mirror without cringing, eat food with people I didn’t know well enough to let them see me with a glaring gap in the front of my mouth, interact with observant people without worrying that they would notice that one of those things was not like the others. The orthodontist appointment was to take scans for my final set of trays and make me a retainer to wear until they came in. But I hadn’t known that I would also have to take a full panel of x-rays, and unexpected x-rays trigger a runaway anxiety response in me that I cannot control. The voice of my trauma from watching my sister die of cancer starts screaming in the presence of free radicals and won’t quit until I can convince her that I have been detoxified. That means green tea, no sugar, elderberries and blueberries and gogi berries, green smoothies, pomegranate or cranberry juice, vile olive leaf extract, enough kombucha to drown in, colloidal oatmeal baths, detoxifying dandelion root teas, a gentle diet, plenty of sleep, and constant stress about being so stressed and anxious. It is debilitating. Under a blanket I held the mug of hot matcha tea to my lips like a potion and breathed. I will be well. Sip. Exhale. I will be well.
The screaming subsided as I internalized my intention with the powerful antioxidants contained in the tea. This is magic as I understand it: making an intention and physically incorporating it or manifesting it in some way. Like prayer as it was meant to be. Pure presence and goodwill. As my unearthed trauma calmed it’s frenzied warning, my practical voice (yes, I do have one) reminded me that tomorrow was Tuesday, the day of our weekly homeschool co-op, and I had two classes to teach that I had scarcely begun planning. The first is a storytelling basics class to Rena’s age group, six- and seven-year-olds, a writing class for kids who aren’t writing on their own yet but can tell a story through pictures. I try to project my most upbeat and engaging self in that class, the quarter-Irish blood that runs thick with stories and tradition and heritage. Only, all I could think about was that tomorrow would also be el Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, a tradition we have adopted in what I hope isn’t cultural appropriation, which gives us a day to create a space for remembrance in our busy lives. If it is cultural appropriation, I will gladly apologize while blaming it on my daughter. It was Rena’s idea last year. We had read about el Dia de los Muertos in a book I got for social studies and she was fascinated by the thought that there was an entire day set aside in Mexican culture just for honoring and remembering those who had died. We set up an extra table in out kitchen, covered it with a pretty tablecloth, and gathered to it pictures and mementos of our daughter, Teresa, stillborn when Rena was seventeen months old, and of my sister, Rose. This year I wanted to include others as well. My husband’s grandparents. My great-grandmother. Setting up our “altar,” preparing foods that remind us of our Beloved Dead, is an act of pure love that the girls and I undertake together. I always light a scented candle, for the sacredness of fire and because my sister loved scented candles and would light as many at once as I would allow when she came to visit. This time I will light the Autumn Vineyard candle my mother bought for me last year, which really smells like Napa Valley in October, just like it did when the five of us—Rose, my mother, the girls and me—flew there to be with my grandfather after the death of my mom’s stepmother in 2018. It was the last trip we would take together, and some of my most closely held memories of her. Scents have their own way of thinning the veil between the present and past.
Talk about the Day of the Dead in class, a voice whispered to me. Ask the kids to put themselves in a story, with something or someone they have lost. I wanted to reject the idea. If I made kids upset, the parents might be upset with me. It felt like a risk. But, I had no other ideas at all, so I went with it. Instead of a bonfire and letters I had a detoxifying bath by candlelight while my husband attempted to put our girls to bed. The next day we woke to baby bunnies, our last litter from the buck who had just been re-homed. New life born on the Day of the Dead, the cycle continues. But, because of it we left for co-op later than ever. I made the drive while jamming to the OneRepublic album, Native, I had bought my husband for his birthday this summer, glad that I could finally sing again after weeks of weather-change-induced congestion. I was avoiding the anxiety of the day before, the anxiety of teaching other people’s young children, and the anxiety of what I was about to attempt in my first class of the day.
I was snappish with the girls when we arrived, especially with Lee who had, as always, removed her shoes and dropped them out of reach. Late, but with the comfort of other families arriving after us (why does that always make me feel better?), I hustled the girls into the church building we rented for our co-op and into their respective classrooms, having missed the morning meditation and announcements for the second week in a row. In my classroom I greeted the students already gathered and waiting for me, apologized to the teaching assistants who had been there on time, and dove in with a story about Sophie, my first pet, who died when Rena was a baby. I thought they could focus on pets they had lost, or a special toy, or a friend they didn’t see anymore. But one girl Rena’s age drew a story about her Nana, including a stunningly elaborate picture of her Nana’s house. The love in each detail of her picture stole my breath. I stopped her mother after classes were done for the day to let her know how brave her daughter had been, and her eyes filed with tears. It had been two years ago almost to the day, she said. “Thank you,” she said.
There is a silence that only those with an intimate knowledge of grief can share, and those who do become bound together for a time. The risk I took allowed a grieving woman the space to share some of her story, and the opportunity to create a space for her daughter as well. I left with a lingering sense of awe and gratitude, which was the perfect atmosphere in which to create this year’s memory table. As we gathered our memories I suddenly realized that Teresa would be in Rena’s co-op classes. I said so out loud and Rena’s face crumpled, the realization of the sister she would never have hitting home. She turned the sadness to action, asking to create a notebook for Teresa like the ones all the kids in the storytelling class had. Rena and Lee worked together to decorate it, and then placed it in the center of the table, between the mini pumpkins the girls painted this year and the birthday cards my best friend’s family makes for Teresa every year. These girls never cease to amaze me with their tenderness and insight. Rena picked marigolds from our garden to decorate the table, the flower believed to hold the power to allow spirits access to their families on the Day of the Dead. My husband came home and admired our table. The Autumn Vineyard candle burned, emitting a sweet muskiness while we ate dinner, cleared the table, and carved jack-o-lanterns together. It was a mild night, and we sat outside and watched our pumpkins glow while sipping hot chocolate with LOTS of whipped cream, in honor of my sister. Rena suggested we tell “scary, made-up stories.” We took turns, laughing in appreciation at each one. When our hot chocolate was gone and we started to get cold we went back inside, and I blew out the candle.
This morning when I got up, groggy from oversleeping after too many long days in a row, I sensed a difference in the kitchen. I stood for a long moment, gazing at our memory table, and I felt a sense of love emanating from it. I swear I really did. I still do. With a new month begun, most of the leaves fallen, and the season turning towards the dark time of the year, I feel more comfort than dread for the first time that I can remember. I sat on the couch this afternoon, a cozy blanket pulled over me and the cat in my lap, and I fingered the beads of my japa mala, one hundred and eight breaths around, then around again, and again, calling a memory from my childhood and girlhood and young-womanhood to mind with each one.No bonfire, no letters, just breath and beads. Better late than never.
I love you, I said to the bright-eyed fairy child with bangs and twirly skirts. I love you, I said to the lonely girl who spent her eleventh year holding her family together through sheer determination, and her twelfth year holding the changing pieces of herself together as best she could. I love you, I said to the awkward teen in shudder-worthy denim dresses with a folded handkerchief hiding her magnificent honey-gold hair. I love you, I said to the no-longer-child who longed to understand her newly dangerous, forbidden body and emerging, equally forbidden fire. I love you, to the young woman whose dream was finally coming true, and who had no idea how to handle the pressure of a “proper” relationship. I love you, new wife and mother, who had been trained for nothing else and still felt completely unprepared and ill-equipped. I love you, as my dreams fell apart and I began to question the necessity of sticking to a bargain when God wasn’t holding up his side. I love you, as I fought to keep the bargain anyway, afraid to let go, afraid to venture into new territory, unsure how to pray for a miracle without earning the right to receive one. I love you, as hope faded, the unthinkable happened, again, young life buried in cold soil, and no explanations given. I love you, as the ghosts became voices I could identify, not evidence of insanity but of trauma, a child still begging to be mothered. I love you, and I’ve found a Mother, although I still wonder if I will be punished by Father for turning to Her instead, although I still am fighting not to believe in a Father who would do such a thing. I love you..
I love…me.
Uncertain and steadfast.
Confused and Knowing.
Haunted….
…and secure.