Some BLT's and a Pot of Tea

Here's an excerpt from my essay "Baila Conmigo," which appeared in Perceptions Magazine of the Arts last spring -

El Día de los Muertos is a day of celebration. In Mexico the banks are closed and in Guatemala people fly giant kites. People all over the world make elaborate altars, ofrendas, in their homes and prepare the favorite foods of their departed loved ones.

If our family celebrated the Day of the Dead, I'd make BLT's for my grandmother, who lived to be 101. For my mother-in-law, who grew up on a farm in Scotland, I’d serve biscuits with a pot of Tetley Tea. To honor my father, we’d have handfuls of cookies and bowls of ice cream—the foods he wasn’t allowed to have when he was living.

Some say that the souls of the dead return to earth each year. I think my mother-in-law, who died 18 years ago, returned last spring. I dreamed I saw her wearing a tweed skirt and a cardigan she’d knit herself.

Sometimes I think of this:  E.M. Forster’s life and mine overlapped for eight years. Maud Hart Lovelace was living in California when I first read her book Heaven to Betsy. Laura Ingalls Wilder was still alive when my parents met.

“Only connect,” our friend E.M. famously said.