This November 2nd, the “Day of the Dead” will be celebrated around Mexico, and the numerous communities of Mexicans that are spread worldwide; I know I will, and I Invite you to learn and celebrate it too.
Day of the Dead (DĂa de los Muertos) is a traditional celebration in Mexico that arose centuries ago with the numerous indigenous communities that habituated in the Latin American country. Before the spanish stepped into what today is known as Mexico, the Aztecs celebrated “the Aztec festival of the little death”, and they were just one of many to have a festivity for the dead or for death.
In my culture, death is part of life and not the end destination, which is why we celebrate it and see it as a transition onto the beginning of our search for “eternal rest.” Therefore, we aren’t scared of it, nor “punished” by it; rather we are celebratory and respectful towards it. We fill our cities with colour and music, as well as dances and food. We build altars for our death relatives and tell stories about their lives; we make sure generation after generation our history is kept intact, and our happiness is passed through life and death, and most importantly that our love transcends between the living and the ones on their transition to rest.
The Day of the Death isn’t “Mexican Halloween” and its not just a day to dress up. This day we reconcile with our relatives who are no longer with us, we serve their favourite food, and write stories so that when they come visit this special night, they can read them and catch up with us. We invite them to toast with us and listen to the music we have learn to love with them in our mind, and their love in our heart.
I celebrate this day to share with my family my tradition and my culture, to remember what its like to be filled with so much passion and love, music and colour and specially to celebrate death as a transition. My mom always tells me “as we welcome life, we should welcome death; as it is not death what we are scared off but rather to be forgotten.” This day is just for that, not to forget our ancestors, but to celebrate them and honour them while they aren’t physically with us but are in our story and trailing in our lives.
I invite anyone who is willing to celebrate it to light a few candles, build their own altar to their relatives or people whom they’d wish to celebrate and commemorate in this day and take part of one of many traditions that can help us connect and cherish life.
