Ghosts
There is something about Halloween that doesn’t seem quite right to me. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, exactly, but I know I keep thinking about Devin. Graves and ghosts and horror all take on a different meaning when you have lived through a horror story, when a grave marks the body of your child. I pass houses that have fake graveyards in front of their house and I frown. Not that I think it is wrong that they do that, but I see it from a different perspective now.
Two years ago a local mother and child were killed while trick or treating on a street not too far from here. For two years there have been flowers and candles on a tree beside the road. I used to pass it almost every dayand always my eyes would look to see what was new on the tree, and to think about that family. My heart clenches every time. I wonder about how the husband is. I wonder what the family is doing this halloween.
Many years ago, when I was a teenager living with my parents, my mom came in my room on halloween night, crying, to tell me that one of her close friends sons had died. On a hayride on a farm, of all things – he had fallen off. Every Halloween I used to think about him briefly, but since Devin died I think about him a lot, and about his family.
This year was a little different, this year we had Kate. We dressed her in costume for some outings. I even carved a pumpkin while she watched. I am sure as the years go by our Halloweens will include more kids activities, more fun and silly scary things. I wonder, though, if I will ever see a gravestone and not think about the real ghosts that hang around in the back of my thoughts.
Agreed. I have a husband who’s no fan of halloween to begin with – less so now that there are real ghosts in our thoughts. We avoided it fairly well this year and gave thanks, yet again, that we live in a building that sees no trick or treaters.
So happy to be able to enjoy autumn now without the spectre of this unlovely holiday gone.
My daughter always wants a big gravestone on the yard for Halloween. I never allow it (and I am a pushover on most things). We stick with spiders, webs, rats, bats, and pumpkins – and we still have a creepy looking house. It is just creepy in a different way – more icky and less death.
I hear you on this one, loud and clear. More so my brother than our lost baby; it feels like he’s been close lately.
great post-i agree. it’s an odd feeling.
I totally know what you are talking about. We have loads and loads of Halloween decorations – we really do it up in our neighborhood… and this year, without even talking about it – we didn’t put up the ‘gravestones’. For me, Nora’s ashes are under a tree in our frontyard – so it’s even MORE distastful to have ‘joke’ gravestones all around the front yard.
There’s this skeleton T-shirt that I’ve seen a couple of people post links to this year–it’s specifically for a pregnant woman with a little skeleton baby on the belly. And it just makes me cringe, because I can’t help but think that’s a dead baby. It’s meant to be cute and funny and other people take it as such, but it’s deeply disturbing to me.
I know what you mean about the gravestones too. I really wanted more Halloween decorations this year than in previous years, but I had a lot of trouble finding things that were fun and festive but not gross or scary or in bad taste. I don’t want ghouls and gravestones and skeletons. Those don’t say “happy” to me. I wanted a cute scarecrow, but couldn’t find one. I lined our walkway with little pumpkins and jack o’lanterns, but I guess I’m more into the “harvest” theme of it all than the spooky part. I think you’re right that after so much loss, it just seems all too real.
Oh Willow, your description of that shirt made me shudder! OMG. I can sort of see how it would be funny to someone who has never been through it, but yikes.
I was thinking along the very same lines this Halloween. I’ve seen lots of fake gravestones in yards and wondered if these people have never lost anyone very close to them. I’ve spent too much time in the cemetery myself (buried two babies and two siblings) to think there’s anything remotely fun about gravestones. Like Willow, I’m more into the harvest theme. And also the candy!