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Many of us love Halloween. Half of adults who celebrate Halloween dress up. Half of those in costume plan to host or attend a party, while 54% will decorate their homes and yards. One-third plan to dress up their pets. And 45% of adults who buy costumes do it in September, showing they really put some planning into it. (No wonder so many Spirit Halloween stores sprout up every year.)
I am one of those who love Halloween. It has ALWAYS been my favorite holiday. I loved trick-or-treating as a kid and even love some of my questionable costume choices. When I had kids of my own, I was fully committed to their own dress-up parades, going to haunted houses and other spooky activities. My kids are grown now, but that has given me a new reason to appreciate the season.
I’m celebrating Halloween as our socially sanctioned opportunity to laugh at death. It’s the one time we shout, “Not today!” at the Grim Reaper while simultaneously pants-ing him. We dodge ghosts and ghoulies and feel even more alive while surviving jump scares. We’ve got permission to talk about death and mortality without bumming people out.
Halloween is really the first act of a two-part holiday with All Saints’/Souls’ Day, or Día de los Muertos (which sounds much cooler). November 1 is the grand pivot from roasting death to embracing and connecting with those we have lost.
Time to summon your ghosts of Halloweens past (non-spooky version)
Thinking about this dual purpose of Halloween and Día de los Muertos reminded me of Ruth, a client who lived a wonderful life through her mid-90s. She was admired in her retirement community for being everybody’s happy and helpful neighbor. But Ruth had also known real sadness in her life, having lost two husbands to natural causes and one adult son, who I had known, by suicide. She moonlit as a Unitarian minister, which I believed was the root of her grace and the source of the “positive vibe cloud” that followed her around.
“I’m lucky to know you, Ruth,” I told her once. “Your positive attitude and light touch seem to come effortlessly to you, and you are a real lift to people around you. Is that because of your ministering / faith history, or have you always been that way?”
She looked up and away, and I could tell she was intentionally remembering.
“Oh, I don’t think so at all. I didn’t have a great childhood I suppose. I was always the brightest in the class, but was “just a girl” and never given a path to do anything other than be a homemaker. Then I started believing what I kept being told, go have babies and keep your husband happy. The precocious little girl, the love-struck teenager, the hopeful new mom that I used to be… they were all stuffed into a too-small box where I couldn’t grow, couldn’t dream. Sometimes I put myself in those boxes back then. I only figured out now that I’m old.
“Tom, all of those past Ruths, each of them sometimes haunt me like ghosts,” she continued. “I just want to go back and give them a hug. Or kick their butt. Maybe more butt-kicking on reflection. I don’t think they give me strength now per se, but they remind me how I got to exactly where I am, for better or worse. And it makes me not want to screw up whatever time I’ve got left.”
I got a little brave with my next questions, but Ruth never seemed put off by third rail topics.
“So how did the death of your two husbands and son impact your everyday life? I don’t know if haunt is the right word, but do their memories uplift or depress, or both? Why doesn’t all that loss make you lonely and depressed like some residents here—is it your belief in God and faith that you’ll see them again?
I was being very serious, but she burst out laughing,
“Wow. Tom you really go right at it, huh?” she said with a few more chuckles. “Of course I miss them, I still love them, and sometimes I get sad when I feel lonely. But no, they don’t haunt me like memories of myself do. Unitarians are really about the interconnectivity of life and that death is a natural thing, not so much about the fire and brimstone of hell or about heaven. I am lucky to have loved them and to have been loved.”
Summoning the ghosts of Halloweens yet to come (a little spookier)
I’ve told that story to a few friends and some of them could really relate to Ruth’s experience. I have people close to me who reinvented themselves from early years of hardship and are walking examples of human excellence. For me, unfortunately, Ruth’s access to previous versions of herself isn’t really a workable model. To the adult Present Me, previous versions of Past Me seem somewhat annoying or cocky at times—although generally well-meaning and moving in the right general direction toward Present Me.
I also tend to go a little darker than Ruth, which is why Halloween is the right seasonal inspiration. It’s a time when I recognize my inner Goth, with more purpose and less eyeliner. I imagine myself in various states of death as “Almost-Dead-Tom” (ADT) or “Just-Dead-Tom” (JDT). By embracing the morbid, I roast the Reaper. After all, Gallows humor is still humor, right? I visualize things like:
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Headless skeleton. Maybe because I don’t “lose my head” in situations very often is why I imagine a situation where I lost my head. Was it a car accident for JDT? Maybe a landmine? Is my head near the rest of me or are my bones scattered? The upside is that it was probably quick. Probably.
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Corpse in a grave. How did I get there? Was I buried alive perhaps? Did I have a little too much to drink, decided to walk around a cemetery, and fell into my final resting place as an Incapacitated ADT?
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Zombie shambling down the street. More in line with the adolescent part of my imagination, but I also can’t imagine myself without my current functioning brain. And on a serious note, my career has shown me what it looks like when people’s minds betray them. So more sad than spooky.
Here is the suggested haunting question for you if you’re a macabre sicko like me, using Halloween tropes to lay waste to an imagined “Almost-Dead-You” (ADY) or “Just-Dead-You” (JDY).
“If that is me yet to come, what is left Undone? Unsaid?”
I bet most people know the answers. The Jack-o-Lanterns smile like they know too.
“We die three times”: The wisdom of Día de los Muertos
I was an adult when the Day of the Dead came into my awareness. Western denial of aging and avoidance of death shape us more than we might think, which is why the encore part of the Halloween holiday hits me so squarely. Mockery of death shifts to reverence. Carved pumpkins give way to candles. The celebration of ancestors, the importance of memory, and the yearning for connection are a sunrise for the soul. I think that’s also why the movie Coco hits so hard.
(I’m not crying, you’re crying.)
There is a saying associated with Día de los Muertos that really resonates with me:
“We die three times: the first when our body dies, the second when we’re buried, and the third when our name is spoken for the last time.”
Now we are getting somewhere. This is our call to action, but maybe with a twist.
Of course light a candle for those who came before and pour a drink for the ones still here. Take out the photo albums, make a playlist for those you lost, find some quiet and find some connection. Think about how you overcame a little spookiness and found some time with the ADY and JDY of the future.
Let’s go one step further and pen our love letters to the dead
And here is the advanced level for the really brave:
Writing this has emboldened me to write my Dead Love Letters. These are notes to my family and friends that I’ll write about the things said and unsaid. They will be read by me if they die first, or by them after Just-Dead Tom appears (hopefully with my head still attached). I am going to write at least one per year. Maybe it will give me a little more courage in life, maybe a little less procrastination. Either way, it can’t hurt.
If we do die three times, I’m going to fight that last death of being forgotten until Almost-Dead Tom can’t fight anymore. I’m going to get and keep my act together in life, but more importantly, make sure others know how much their lives mean to me. Maybe the letters will be a family legacy, who knows, but I gotta get started.
Plus, I have to admit, it will be a little fun to haunt them, even if Ghost Me only lives on the page.
Related: Fight Club at 55: Gen X and the Once in a Lifetime Sucker Punch