A Different Halloween

I innocently went into town last night with my camera and a bag of candy. It was Halloween and I was remembering all of the Halloweens when Ned and I made reservations for dinner and after dinner went to the San Francisco Hotel and sat in the bar where we could see out the door. The first few years there would be a few children who painted their faces or wore a costume that they probably also wore in the Locos parade. They were out looking for candy from the gringos. Sometimes it would be three or four boys about seven to eleven years old running in a pack. Or it might be an older sister shepherding her siblings and that might include a wide-eyed three year old on her first Halloween adventure. So cute. A few of the groups would notice us sitting inside the bar having a margarita and they would rush in holding out their plastic grocery bags for candy afraid that the management would rush them back out before they got their treat. We wanted to talk to them but all they wanted to say was 'hola' and 'gracias' and run back out to collect more goodies.

Then we started to see a few adults who were on their way to a party dressed in Victorian costumes with painted skeleton faces. But basically the Jardin was maybe a bit more crowded than most nights but not much.

Well, friends, things have changed and changed more than I realized. Now there are any number of Calaca events. Calaca is a colloquial Mexican Spanish name for skeleton or skull and you see it used mostly during events for the Mexican Day of the Dead festivals. Here in San Miguel it has turned into a three day holiday of events that are mostly initiated by the gringos. That is not to say that the Mexicans don't participate as well because I saw a lot of school children and young people wearing the calaca makeup but the gringos do seem to having a great time with the costumes and parties.

As I said, I innocently went into town about 5 PM expecting last night to be about the kids and candy. The Jardin was already very crowded. I can't imagine what it was like by 7 PM. I didn't stay. I walked on out to Fabrica Aurora for their art event. Surely if the Jardin was that full of people the Fabrica would not be so crowded. I was wrong again. It, too, was packed with people and Calacas. I had a great time wandering from studio to studio, looking at the art and stopping along the way to talk with friends.

Just about the time I decided that I better try to get a cab and head back across town I met my foto friend, Sally. She was ready to leave as well and invited me to join her for dinner at Don Lupe Grill with some other people that I knew. It was a fun Halloween but very different than what I expected.

In some ways I'm sad about the changes that are happening around Day of the Dead. As I thought about it after I got home last night I also remembered that I had gone to the cemetery yesterday morning and the traditional things were starting to happen. Trucks were coming in loaded with flowers, food and flower venders were setting up their tents. Families were starting to clean graves and repaint the names on the tombstones. Families were greeting friends and walking with each other to their family gravesites. The vendors of the sugar skulls and little animals are set up in town, the bakeries are baking the traditional bread and families are getting ready to make their home altars to honor and remember their loved ones.

So, in a sense, the Calaca festivals are like another layer on the traditional celebration of Day of the Dead. And I think I like the Calacas better than the connotation that Halloween has of haunted houses, malevolent ghosts and goblins who are sinister. The Calacas who walk among us in San Miguel, although they do remind us of death, are not evil spirits who are out to do us harm. Well, no harm unless we have one to many drinks with them at the festival.

I'm working on an altar for Ned. Yes, I have the tequila bottle sitting on it. I still need to buy some Snickers. I can't have him dropping by and not have Snickers for him. Snickers and tequila. That was my Ned.

A Transitory Life

A few things have happened recently to friends that remind me that we are mortal and life is transitory. I don't think people in their 40's, 50's think too much about the transitory part but when you get to be my age you think about it. I'm not saying that you spend your days worrying about dying but when you have lost a spouse and dear friends, you wonder about what is going to happen. About how you are going to get from living to being dead. I know that sounds weird. Still, I don't know anyone who wants to suffer or their families to suffer with them through a long illness where there is no chance of recovery.

I recently read Atul Gawande's book, On Being Mortal; Medicine and What Matters in the End. Gawande is a surgeon and has written several books about medicine. He also writes about medical issues in the NewYorker Magazine. Gawande apparently has struggled in his own medical practice on how to handle patients when he knows that medicine can not heal them. He wrote this book after his Father, also a surgeon, died from a rare form of cancer and as Gawande was with his Father through his illness, he saw medicine from the standpoint of the patient and his family.

The book is about the end of our lives and how to manage when our body begins to fail us. He writes about assisted living and nursing homes and why many elderly people are not happy living in these facilities. It is because they lose control of their lives in order that their families feel they are safe and the facility can operate efficiently. Losing control of when you want to get up in the morning, eat, take a bath, watch TV and  giving up privacy is hard to accept no matter if you are old and your body is failing.

The last half of the book about medical care in the last part of life brought back memories of so many doctor visits with Ned as we negotiated his last months.

Gawande writes:

“The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a war that you cannot win, you don't want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don't want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knew how to fight for territory when he could and how to surrender when he couldn't, someone who understood that the damage is greatest if all you do is fight to the bitter end.”  

Fighting to the bitter end, Ned's last couple of months were overwhelming with visits to specialist who couldn't help, radiation that left him even more exhausted and more tests.

How do we find the right doctors that do not keep offering medical procedures that may prolong life but make it impossible for us to live our last days as we want, a doctor who can help us understand what is happening, ask us what is important and coach us through rational choices.

I think this is a great book for those of us who are in the "third age" as we call it here in Mexico but also it is a good book for our adult children to read as well.

The image of the bottles that once held medicines and potions is from the Port Aransas project.

Margaret and Me

This is my "little" sister and me in October, 1995. She lived in Midland, Texas and I was there so that I could take down a exhibition of my work in Odessa. Margaret had helped me get it down. I don't know where we were when this was made or who took the shot but it was with my 35mm SLR camera. Tiny negative, grainy film but I have very few pictures of the two of us together because I was always the one using the camera. I'm thankful for this picture. A year later breast cancer took her life. Today she would have been 74 years old. I still miss her deeply. Rest in peace, Margaret Ann Williams Taylor. RIP

A Death in the Neighborhood

This afternoon around 3:30 I heard voices in the street and about the time I went to the window to look out I heard a siren. It was an ambulance. I opened my front door and there on the sidewalk was one of my neighbors who lives across and about four or five houses up the street. He was lying there with people standing around in a half circle. The ambulance crew checked him and quickly loaded him in the ambulance and his wife got in the front seat. Other members of the family were being hugged and comforted. The ambulance left but not with sirens blaring.

I went out and talked to another neighbor who told me that he heard people and when he went out the man was just lying there and he immediately thought that the man was dead. But he didn't know what happened.

I looked out the window again about 7:30. There was a crowd gathered in front of the house and I saw the coffin being taken into the house. The young men in the family were bringing in folding chairs from the furniture rental place up the street.

I'm overwhelmed with sadness for the family. He and his wife were not old. I'd guess between 45 and 55. He sold small punched tin pieces from the trunk of his car in front of the San Francisco Church at night. She sells snacks from the front room of their house and they have a few video game machines that use to be frequented a lot before cell phones with their handheld games.

He was a handsome man with a mustache. About 5ft 9in and slender. His clothes were not expensive but he wore them with style.

I've been thinking about the last time I saw him. I think it was last Friday. He was standing in front of his house when I passed by. We nodded and said Buenas Dias.

Of all of the people who might have died on my street today, never, ever, would I have expected it to be him.