Alma Luz Villanueva

As November 1st and 2nd approach, I think of the last Dia de Los Muertos...my walk to the Guadalupe Cemetery with stalls sprung up on both sides...the smells of delicious food cooking, people sitting and eating on plastic chairs...the endless stalls of flowers, bunches of sharp-scented marigolds and every other flower you can think of, almost...stalls of vases for the flowers and stalls of objects to decorate the graves, many small toys for the child graves. Then you enter the cemetery and it's not somber at all...there's roaming musicians playing music and singing for a few pesos...families are gathered on the beloved's grave, kids lounging on the tomb stone laughing as the family decorates the grave with beautiful things, flowers, photos as remembrance. Blankets spread, food spread, families everywhere...no sense of mourning but of a great reunion with the souls of their dead, transformed...there is no death here, only transformation.
The first time I came to the cemetery, I brought my grandmother's photo, Jesus Villanueva, and a small bunch of marigolds, wandered around for a while watching families...then the musicians started playing guitars and singing beautiful songs...one of them asked me if I had a request, so I asked them to play/sing my grandmother's favorite, 'Cucurucucu Paloma'...and the singer hit the high note so sweetly, and they smiled so widely, I couldn't even cry. Hours later as I slowly walked toward the gates to exit, I passed the most beautiful grave, literally covered with toys, bottles of Victoria...the beer sold only in Mexico...so many bunches of marigolds, roses, lilies, and a photo of a smiling teenager. I stopped to take it all in and the father of the boy simply smiled at me, with so much joy, as though I were joining him and his son, their renunion...I told him how beautiful his son's grave was and he thanked me, asking me to sit, so I did. We sat silently, in the peace of that moment, the warm sun, his son's presence...and I think that's when I began the full celebration of my grandmother's spirit, always present in my life these past 52 years...QUE VIVA...she came home, Mexico lindo y querida...