By Zerline Hughes Spruill
The perimeter of the Barbie-sized soccer field was made of cempasúchil, the bright orange marigolds believed to guide the dead home, and the turf was a carpet of native plants like bougainvillea shredded so finely, this ofrenda should have won an award. But that’s not what the practice is about. This was just one of the graves I couldn’t stop staring at in San Antonio Tecómitl last November. I had the fortune to attend a day-into-night group tour of Mexico City’s outer edges that my husband and I appreciated during our first Día de Muertos as temporary Mexican residents.
Families arrived with brooms, hoes and buckets to clear away perhaps a year of debris, then covered headstones in dozens upon dozens of marigolds. One couple waved me over and, in Spanish, invited me to admire the resting place of their son, who died as a baby more than 40 years ago. They have come back every year since.
In the distance, a man shovels weeds from a gravesite in preparation to decorate it for Dia de Muertos.
I grew up understanding death as a sad occasion. For years, I have tried to treat it as liberation instead, and I have told anyone who will listen that I want a dance party when I go. My youngest has already started curating a playlist. Standing in that cemetery, it was a comfort to learn that my wish lines up, at least partly, with a whole culture’s.
This is my first Día de Muertos since losing my friend Eileen, who called Mexico home for about 30 years. I wrote about her here.
I know the holiday is being borrowed far beyond Mexico, and as a Black woman I understand that frustration in my bones. As an L.A. native and now a permanent resident celebrating many observations with Mexican friends, I hope the part I take on is received as respect.
A year later, I’m writing this from a cruise ship docked in Cabo San Lucas, close enough to catch the season again.
