Willow Glen Resident

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Dia de Los Muertos is not a scary holiday

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

Residents in the Gardner neighborhood honored their dead with a celebration of life.

The neighborhood came together on Nov. 1 to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, with a community altar honoring the lives of ancestors, family and friends who are no longer with them.

Macabre skeletal faces smiled from the altar. Pan de muerto, or bread of the dead, is offered at the altar for those who have died.

Images of deceased family members, paintings and sculptures along with colorful decorations made up the altar.

"It's a day that teaches both the local youth and resident alike the importance of remembering life," said Gardner Advisory Council board member Pati Palomares-Mason. "This holiday combines the new world with the old traditions."

The day was filled with arts and crafts for youth. The children painted plaster trinkets with skeletons and pumpkins and decorated feathered masks.

San Jose Community Centers operations manager Sally Estrada brought the plaster trinkets, paints, paint brushes and masks for the celebration.

"I explain to the children that day of the dead isn't something scary," Estrada said. "It's just a time to remember their family members and celebrate the happiness they brought them."

In 2006, Estrada brought sugar and helped the children make sugar skulls.

The holiday is an ancient tradition celebrated in southern Mexico on Nov. 1-2.

The traditional holiday is celebrated over a two-day period with marigolds or flor de muertos strewn on and around loved ones' tombs.

"The Aztecs used this flower because of its pungent aroma," Palomares-Mason says. "It reminded them of death."

Typically, families picnic on the tombs of their loved ones, tell stories about the dead and make altars dedicated to dead family members in their homes. Families also bring favorite items of those who died to the graves as reminders that they have not been forgotten. Skulls covered in multicolored sugars, as well as sweet bread, are also part of the celebration.

"A lot of people are afraid of this day because all they see are the skulls," Palmares-Mason said. "They think it's only about death, but it's about remembering those we have lost. Remembering how they laughed, the foods they enjoyed."

The community event had a twofold purpose: to remember the dead and remember their culture.

"A lot of people are forgetting the old traditions," Palomares-Mason said. "This is just another way to remind them."

This holiday is an ancient Mesoamerican tradition that evolved from the worship of the Aztec goddess of death, Mictecacihuatl. After the Spanish brought Catholicism to Mexico, the holiday melded with the Christian All Souls and All Saints days and became a celebration of their dead relatives.

The indigenous people of Mexico believe that after a loved one dies, they continue to exist, not to be resurrected or judged but to visit with their families during these days every year.

An important belief as part of the Day of the Dead celebration is that there are three deaths in an individual's lifetime. The first is the physical death when the heart stops beating and the body turns cold. The second occurs when the body is lowered into the grave. The third and final death occurs when there is no one left to remember the dead or his or her life.