And Yet Still, I Come Back : Reflections on the Day of the Dead

I pause before entering, greeted by the sight of old women selling candles, flowers, and prayers, and little children scavenging for the wax of melted candles. It has been a year since I have been here. A year since I last went through these gates, a year since I last gazed on his name carved on his tombstone, a year since I last lit candles in his memory.

As i walk the pathways of the cemetery, I see names and dates of birth and death. R.I.P. in memory of Juan de la Cruz, born 19xx, died 200x, remembrance from his loving family. I noticed that some had lived to a ripe old age, some died while still in the prime of their life, while others did not even reach a year, the light of consciousness never dawning upon their minds. Then I wonder, what were their lives? What were their stories? Did they live wretched and obscure lives or lives honorable and worthy of mention? How did they die? Did they die a glorious and heroic death or did they die slowly and painfully on a hospital bed? Were they able to prepare and come to terms with their own death or did death come to them unexpectedly like thief in the night?

Then I am reminded that soon enough, I too shall suffer their fate. Maybe fifty years from now, maybe next year, maybe tomorrow, but for certain, my name is will find its way on one of those tombstones. It's a scary thought for sure, but I have long resigned myself to it. Some may argue that, hey, we really shouldn't be scared 'cause we've already had plenty of experience being dead, for before we were born, we were all dead. Sure, the argument may make some sense, but once you get a taste of what life is, being dead is just, well, scary. We may all try our darndest (sometimes even to the point of delusion) to believe in an after life, or in reincarnation, or in whatever you believe in, but the only thing we can be certain about is this. That when we do leave this earth, the one thing left of us would simply be a memory. The thought does not comfort me. I continue walking.

I finally reach his tomb. My stepfather's. It's a bit too shabby, to say the least, almost blackend by the dust and the soot of candles. I had hired the services of one of the clean up boys in the cemetery, to rid the the tomb of its rubbish, repaint the lettering with gold and give it a fresh coat of white paint. I almost balk at his price, but i'd rather let him do the job, and it is his season anyway, so I pay up.

The boy does his job quite meticulously, almost in a very caring and loving manner. First he wipes the soot and grime off with a rag soaked in acid, and then very skillfully restores the lettering on the tomb in gold paint. He then takes out his little can of white paint and proceeds to very carefully apply a new coating of white, making sure that it does not go beyond the borders of the tombstone.

As I watch the boy clean up the tomb, a question comes to my mind. I had not grown to love my stepfather. I even have a slight degree of contempt for him, having witnessed some of the weaknesses and flaws in his character. But he is dead now, and it is not up to me to judge, as I too am human. He had come so suddenly into me and my mother's lives, and so suddenly he was taken away, so I had not known who he really was.

So, the question. I had not grown to love him, and yet still, every year, I come back. why?

Is it out of a simple respect for my mother's wishes? Maybe. Oh, how my mother had loved him, inspite of everything. I myself didn't get it (and up to now, I still don't). But hey, when it comes to love, people don't usually think right, right? I've read somewhere that falling in love is the closest thing we ordinary people can get to insanity. But even if I think my mother was insane for choosing someone like him, that does not get over the fact that she is my mother. And as a son who loves and respects here, I obey. So I come. Yet somehow I feel it is something else, something deeper.

Then it occurs to me. Could this be why I had been asking all those questions as I passed all those other tombs? Could it be because of my fear that some sort of karma will hit me, that I too when I die will be another forgotten name in an obscure tomb in some public cemetery, unknown and unremembered?

Is this the reason then that we all flock to the cemeteries in this season of candles and remembrances? So that in the passing of the years, as people continue to remember their dead, we too might be remembered after we die? Oh, how hard it is to contemplate being forgotten. All our achievements, all our hardships, everything we have ever been or done would seem to be for naught. So in the face of this reality so hard to swallow, are we merely holding on to this tradition as if it were some sort of security blanket from our fear of being forgotten? For when we are forgotten by the living, then that is when we are truly dead.

Then I remember something I read from one of neil gaiman's sandman books. "What do the dead care what happens to them? Eh? They're dead. All the trappings of death are for the living. It is the final reconciliation. The last farewell." Indeed.

Thus next year, I will come back. And the year after that, and the year after, assuming that I am still alive. I will keep on coming back, as we all have been doing, generation after generation. For it is not just for our dead, it is for us too.