Let me die like a Mexican

They say you only truly die when your name is spoken for the last time. Nowhere is this more true than in Mexico, where Día de Muertos – or Day of the Dead – takes remembering lost loved ones to a whole new level.

At first glance, this national holiday may pass for a Mexican version of Halloween, with its spooky skeletons and sweet treats. But while modern Halloween exists largely to peddle pumpkins and face paint, Día de Muertos is a bittersweet reflection on love, loss and life well lived.

Piles of cempasúchil and cockscomb flowers in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán

According to Mexican tradition, 2nd November is the one day when souls can leave the afterlife. To help guide lost loved ones back to earth, families build elaborate altars in homes and graveyards. These offerings are draped with flower garlands and colourful crêpe paper, and hung with corn cobs, fruit and sugar cane. Dozens of flickering candles light the way, while the scent of cempasúchil – Mexican marigolds – hangs in the air.

Family members light candles on an offering in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán

Water, salt and sweet pan de muerto bread are laid out to nourish the dead after their long journey home – and it doesn’t stop there. Children’s graves are festooned with sweets and toys, while tobacco and tequila are left to tempt the spirits of adults. Families even prepare platefuls of their loved one’s favourite meals for their short time back on earth.

Toys and sweets are offered to the spirits of children

All this may sound morbid, but Día de Muertos is far from a day of moping and mourning. Families gather to remember those they’ve lost, not with sadness but with songs, stories and laughter. The foods from the offerings are eaten, music played and memories shared.

Marigold petals and candles decorate graves in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán

To outsiders, this lack of solemnity may even seem disrespectful. But as a friend explained, “When someone you love dies, it affects you every day, so why would you be sad on the one day they’re back here with you?”

When you look at it like that, it’s hard to argue that the Day of the Dead is anything but beautiful. But how can it possibly comfort those who – like me – don’t believe in heaven, souls or anything else beyond this world?

Colourful wreaths and armfuls of flowers are piled high on graves

As an atheist, I spent my first year in Mexico looking at Día de Muertos from the outside in; as something only other people believed in. The religious. The spiritual. Those brought up in Mexican culture. Another couple of years on, though, and I was starting to understand that this remembrance is much more than merely symbolic.

This towering ofrenda is covered with cempasúchil flowers and topped with crosses

Believe in what you will, let’s say all those who ever cared about a particular person gather together in one place to remember them by sharing their most vivid and vibrant memories. Surely then, for that one moment at least, that person’s spirit really is there?

Sugar skulls and pan de muerto are a sweet reminder that life is fleeting

And so, while I have endless wishes for my life, I now have only one for my death: let me die like a Mexican. When I’m gone – with any luck many years from now – let me be remembered as Mexicans are.

Let bright orange blossoms, the gentle glow of candles and the smell of my favourite foods guide me home. Let me be brought back to life once a year through the love and laughter of those who knew me. Let my memory bring joy to anyone I leave behind.

If that’s not life after death, I don’t know what is.

 

All images copyright of Lauren Mannion.

Back to basics

Working in online content, I get paid to write every day. Somehow this had fooled me into thinking that I was a writer.

When I was growing up, I wrote constantly: stories, poems, diaries and endless pages-long letters to penpals all around the world. My mum still reminds me about the little notes I used to leave around the house for her. “Dear mum, Can we go to the park tomorrow? Tick here for yes, tick there for no”.

I even made a bet with a friend, many years ago, that we would both become published authors before our 30th birthdays. Well, his has already passed, while mine is just a week away, and neither of us has managed to produce that daring debut novel we dreamed of. Having said that, we’ve both been published in magazines and both of our jobs involve writing.

The kind of writing I do at work isn’t quite what I dreamed of, being limited by a strict style guide, commercial needs and above all, incredible time pressure. Still, writing like this has a certain puzzle-like appeal, the game being to move the information around like jigsaw pieces until it fits into the required format, usually at breakneck speed.

No, the real issue I have with churning out twenty identikit 100-word texts a day is that it superficially satisfies that deep need to write, so that I come home more inclined to mindlessly watch Youtube or scroll through Reddit than to put pen to paper, when actually I’m not truly writing at all.

A recent copywriting training course about unlocking creativity was an incredible release for me, and reminded me how far I’d drifted from doing what I really love. I spent most of the journey home furiously scribbling down ideas, and this blog which I had created and then left idle for months seems like as good as any a place to share them.

More to come…