Honoring Dia de los Muertos (a collaboration with my daughter)
As many of you know, my family and I spent a magical year living in Mexico City. The memories and life lessons we took from that experience are countless, but one way of living really stands out during this time of year when skeletons and tombstones decorate people’s yards.
In Mexico, Halloween is not a thing. Instead, for nearly 3000 years, Mexicans have celebrated Dia des los Muertos—the Day of the Dead—an enormously important holiday of honoring loved ones we’ve lost and the legacies they leave for us. It’s about finding life inside death (and vice versa), a gargantuan cultural festival of blazing colors, sugar skulls and marigolds, thirty-foot skeletons in parade, and special altars overflowing with mementos of our loved ones loved most in life. Interestingly, it’s not even a little bit gloomy. It’s sacred, celebratory, dazzlingly alive with color and memory and love. You don’t mourn the dead, you honor them. You gather them up in your arms and throw a party. And in the heart of Mexico City, the party is nothing short of mesmerizing.
So you can imagine my thrill (and eerie, coincidental surprise), when a week before Halloween, while driving my daughter to soccer practice, she flipped the page of The Creativity Project, a collection of prompts and responses by and from notable young adult authors, edited by Colby Sharp, and read the following prompt by Jewell Parker Rhodes: “You’ve been dead for a long time. Someone who just passed away asks you what to expect.” The rest of the car ride was a live collaboration of what that experience might be like. A little morbid? Maybe. More so though, it underscored the value of Mexico’s approach, where death isn’t scary, but rather another opportunity to live. My daughter decided to write up our little collaboration. Here it is!
Prompt by Jewell Parker Rhodes: “You’ve been dead for a long time. Someone who just passed away asks you what to expect.”
Response by Louise (with some inspiration from Mommy):
Hi, I’m Maria. I died just 5 days ago and I want to share my fun adventures in heaven with you. When I got here I didn’t know what to expect. I was amazed by the sight of this gigantic machine. “In you go,” they had said to me. I had stared into the black hole in the machine and wondered “What is in there?” But, after all, I’m already dead so not that much could hurt me. Right? Anyways, I climbed into the hole and sat there expectantly. WHOOSH! Down I went. There were little twinkling screens everywhere and I could see people about 5-10 feet in front of me of all ages. It was like a straightaway slide that you would find on the playground except it was much longer.
After about two minutes in the machine I saw an opening at the end of the hole. I was almost out! It seemed I was going to be separated into a group of some sort but before that, it looked a bit like a security line in an airport. People were lined up in different rows looking like they were about to receive some important information. As they got separated, people clicked buttons and rainbow carpets appeared out of nowhere. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, but I didn't. I got out of the hole and tried to walk straight but a friendly guard stopped me.
“Your talent, Miss” he paused. “Fashion designer,” he finished.
“But, but, I’m not a fashion desi-”
“Next!” Uh-oh, I needed to move. I rushed out of there and didn’t notice stepping over a glowing green line. Suddenly, I knew exactly what I needed to do. “So that’s the trick.” I thought “When you walk over the line you magically know what you need to do.” Wow. That’s pretty cool. By the time I got to the computer with the buttons for rainbow carpets I knew everything I needed to know. Here’s how heaven works.
That black hole/scanner thing unleashed a talent I have had inside me but didn’t use on Earth.
You get to be in a group with people that died the same day as you did.
Everyone got the power to make their own carpet paths to loved ones that died before them (these carpets turned out to be scarlet red)
I was allowed to meet 3 people in history (and only three) and make carpets paths to them whenever I wanted. I only needed to know who I wanted to visit first in case my meeting with them inspired me to meet someone I hadn’t thought about before. (these carpets are black and white).
So, I got to the front of the line and the person said “Date of death?”
“Uhhhhh”
“Whatever, no one ever remembers it, but I’m still supposed to ask. I guess the talent scanner thingamajig takes away that piece of info. Anyways, here’s your group. Someone in it is a grumpy old man. Sorry, I ramble too much. Go!” The person says with a wave of his arm. He creates a path for me and his stony faced look comes back. My adventure in heaven had really begun! I was off to explore!
I step onto the carpet and a little flat diamond platform appears. It says Step Here. I step on the diamond and it follows the rainbow path, whisking me away into a portal with twinkling stars in the marbled night sky. When a big house comes into sight, the platform starts glowing green, I step off and examine the place. 5 people are already there but as I watch it becomes 10, 15, 20-so many people that died on the same day as I did. I ponder my options. I think about going into the house and passing these people, I think about talking to people, I think about exploring the terrain on a nice walk. Yes. I choose walking until I realize that someone is following me. I turn around after I hear the crunch and cracks of leaves and sticks being stepped on. Well, when I look behind me, I find someone who I don’t know but he looks like he's about the same age as me. He introduces himself. “Hey, I’m Luca. What’s your name?” He brushes hair out of his eyes and takes a good look at me.
“Oh! Uh, my name is Maria” I respond, bumfuzzled and wanting a reason to get out of this conversation. “ I - uh, was going to make a path to my grandmother. See you back at the house.” I guess I got out of that one. As I try to create a scarlet red carpet that will take me to my grandma, I pull some crackers that still happen to be in my jacket pocket and munch on them. I step onto the carpet and a heart platform appears. I step on and get ready to see my grandma. When I arrive, I step off, see a house, and immediately run inside to find my grandma. I see a door labeled Tarisse Lankton and open it wide. My grandmother is sitting there, looking better than ever. I run up and hug her. Her eyes open wide and her arms enclose around me so tight that I can’t breathe. Not that breathing matters when you're dead. Haha! I talk to her for about an hour until she says that she has to get to a bridge game, that her friends will be waiting for her. I hug her again and say see you soon then get back on my carpet path to go back to my house.
When I go inside for the first time I find a room with a plaque on the door with my name on it. I open the door and find a dresser full of clothes, a bed with a perfect comforter, a desk, a bookshelf full of books I love, and books I really want to read. Most importantly, I find the picture of my mom, dad, sister and I in Disneyland framed and hung up on the wall. I sit and rest until I hear a bell and people calling for dinner time. I sit down at the humongous table and start talking with 10 other people. It turns out that one of the other girls, Layla, also was tagged fashion designer for her talent, so we’ll get to work together a lot. Other talents people got were karate, singer, dancer, makeup artist, lawyer, chess player, public speaker/politician etc. Donna, a girl that seems about 10-15 years older than I am, got graphic novel writer as her talent, which I think is pretty cool. After dinner we enjoy a delicious pumpkin pie for dessert and then we all go to our separate suites. Turns out that because of our talents, Layla is my bathroom sharer because there are Jack-and-Jill bathrooms everywhere from bedroom to bedroom.
The next morning I wake up, have breakfast, and then go to the room chosen for fashion designer practice. I find Layla already there, so we start talking while sewing and measuring. I still can’t believe that I did no sewing or anything with fashion on Earth but that on the first day I am so excited to learn. When it was time for lunch we walked to the dining area and talked about our lives when we were alive. After lunch I told Layla I wouldn’t see her for a while because I was going to visit another family member and my first famous person, Harriet Tubman. Layla said that she is also going to visit a family member and that her first person was going to be Whitney Houston because on earth she had been a singer for birthday parties! I walked into the woods and made a black and white carpet appear to take me to Harriet Tubman. When I got to the place, I realized that in heaven there was no such thing as slavery. I loved that. I went to her room and we had a chat that was very interesting. I asked her how she learned about the white people’s houses that were stops on the underground railroad. I also told her that she was about to be on the $20 bill! Harriet Tubman inspired me to see someone, Jermain Loguen, so I put that on my list of historic people and went off to see my mom and dad. After my day of reuniting, learning, meeting, getting inspired, and sewing/designing I got into bed and fell asleep quickly.
That is as much as I can tell you of my story, you’ll have to wait until it’s your turn to explore all of heaven! That was my first two days and I can’t wait till tomorrow! See ya!
P.S. Have fun on Earth! I did.