I used to really like Halloween stores. I'd take the kids in there and we would try on masks or silly hats. I've been collecting masks and silly hats since I discovered their magic in college when we used them to act out a simple play. A hat made all the difference when it came to becoming someone else. Then, I got to replay their magic again and again when I brought my hats and puppets for my kids' charter school drama club. Of course, this was all before COVID made everything you touch seem like a contagion. Now, the masks most people collect cover their mouth and nose.
I walked into this Halloween store years ago, thinking we would just wander through and play with costumes. But I wasn't there more than about two or three minutes when I found the life-sized figure of an undead baby that reminded me too much of the [then] recent day I held my newly dead, cold baby and longed for her to come back. I was aghast that someone found this thing to be...what? Amusing? Decorative?
I couldn't imagine what would motivate someone to buy this. I've seen skeletons, zombie clowns, and undead or skeletal things of every description. But I couldn't believe someone had done this. With how freshly I had held my little dead baby, this felt like a personal attack. If I had not had such a loss, this thing would have blended in with all other monsters and ghouls and goblins. But because of my personal loss, this stuck out.
I imagine there are others like me, others that don't enjoy those reminders of death every October. It makes me think of stories like "Corpse Bride" and "Cocoa" and "The Book of Life," movies that treat our loved ones on the other side as nearby and reunions with them not as morbidly fascinating or darkly scintillating but as glorious and beautiful. That's what I'd rather think of when I consider my baby, that moment of reunion, the resurrection when I will hold my baby again. I don't go into stores created to house the ghouls and goblins of Halloween anymore. Bring me El Dia de los Muertos. I don't need to think of the dark side of death. I want to see the glory and vibrant colors of celebration of reunion with our loved ones. That's the vision of death and rebirth that brings hope.
