The Intertwinement of Loss and Joy

El Dia de Los Muertos is a holiday where those who have passed on are commemorated. This holiday is meant to be a celebration of their lives. It is meant to be full of love and joy. 

My family and I have celebrated my abuelito for the past nine years. We recall all his favorite foods, recount stories, and decorate his altar as beautifully as our abilities allow us to. While there is a hint of sadness, it is mostly filled with the warmth that adoration and happiness bring. 

However, this year our altar had fewer white spaces. Frames that held my abuelita’s face claimed those previously lonesome spaces. For the first time in nine years, El Dia de los Muertos did not provide comfort, but reminded us of our unhealed wound, and reopened another. 

Nothing truly shifted in the way we celebrated . The altar was still beautiful, the memories were still told, and the food was still placed, but a melancholy engulfed us. While we held onto the gratitude that they were finally reunited at last, we could not shake our own selfish desires that we didn’t deserve to be left alone. 

This year, El Dia de los Muertos brought sadness and guilt, with not enough joy. I craved both of their presences, and I found myself becoming the ten year old that did not understand why my abuelito had to go. I would scream that it was unfair in the solace of my mind - that I did not deserve this. I was enveloped by a deep sadness that plagued my soul, my mind - and made it increasingly more difficult to do the most mundane of tasks. I felt selfish, as it was to be their celebration, but I was unable to stop my torment. I was repeating my cycle of grief, and I was stuck in the anger. 

One day, I said a joke, a joke my abuelita heavily overused, and I realized they had not truly left. I was surrounded by their presence, by their love. They are there when I ask for my abuelito’s favorite ice cream flavor, strawberry, or when I partake in the joy of eating a cema, my abuelita’s favorite pan dulce. They are sitting by me as I watch La Rosa De Guadalupe or listen to Pedro Fernandez.

I see them both when I look into the mirror. I have my abuelita’s face shape and my abuelito’s eye color. I see them both through the expressions on my mom’s face, through her personality. 

While this Dia de los Muertos was unusually unbearable, it forced me to remember that I only lost them physically. Spiritually, they live on through those that they loved, and those who love them. 

It is unwise to believe that death does not bring sadness, even when we are meant to be celebrating them. It is heartbreaking to remember that those you love are gone. That you might never be given the chance to hold them again. But, it is painstakingly beautiful to remember that their souls, their love lives on. It also proves to be a painful reminder to hold onto the ones you love now a little tighter, because their absence will eventually come. 

If you’re missing someone today, take a moment to observe yourself and those who knew them, and you will find yourself given little glances of those you’ve lost. 

Written by: Wendy Herrada

Cover Design: Valeria Camacho