It's That Day Again...

 So it's Dia de Muertos today. Or Dia de los Muertos. I switch back and forth on if I use the longer or the short version. I actually looked it up this year to see which one was right and got the "it's all good, no?" response so...yeah. 

Reading my On This Day posts and it started with remembering Jack. Then remembering Jack and Dad. Last year I actually put together an ofrenda, it was the week after Mom's funeral and it seemed right to do one. I did it just for my parents. I memorialized Jack in my blog and in my posts, but the ofrenda itself was just Mom and Dad. Which looking back this year I thought it was odd.

Then I started thinking about if I were to make one this year, which I'm not going to make an actual one because kittens...

But anyway, when I started to think about making one I was trying to decide what I would use to represent Jack and what I would put as an offering. Like for my folks I put Dad's ring and Mom's owl and used their favorite candies. For Ann I have a smaller glass bauble and I thought a shot of tequila or a Margarita would work, but what would I do for Jack? I've got some bigger items, the flag from his funeral, a gargoyle, a Frank Lloyd Wright clock. Maybe his challenge coins from the funeral? The ones people gave us. 

And then I remembered thinking last year about using the coins. And that I didn't because I wasn't sure they were really him. Or what I thought of as him anyway. And then the thought of "Ann carries him like Mom carried Dad so not this year."

Oh.

That's right. Last year I talked myself out of the coins and finding a brownie or some pizza for the ofrenda for Jack because like Mom had been the main memory keeper for Dad, Ann was holding Jack. And that it wouldn't be until Ann died that we would become the main keepers. And that wouldn't be for years.

That's what I had decided.

We all know how that worked out.

So...

I'm not making an actual ofrenda this year but I am thinking about one. 

A sugar skull surrounded by marigolds. My father's ring, my mother's owl, Ann's bauble and Jack's clock. The picture of Jack and Ann where they are standing by The Gorge and the picture of my parent's from the last time we had family pictures done. Orange slices and chocolate covered peanuts with a turtle brownie and a giant Margarita on the rocks, no salt.

Honor your dead. Remember them fondly. Hold them in your hearts. Build them an ofrenda, real or a vision of one. And remember that you don't get to decide or to know when your loved one will become part of your ofrenda instead of part of your life.

Rest in peace to our parents. We hold your memory now.