Remembering Our Loved Ones | Dia De Los Muertos

It's called the Day of the Dead.  Not a time for mourning but rather a day of remembering the life the lived and shared with us.  I haven't lost many people in my life, however, the one of the two people I've lost is my grandma Delfina.  

A beautiful woman wrinkled with the lines of her life.  Her triumphs and her undying love her for 8 children in the tiny pueblo of Chihuahua.  With it's dirt roads and city buses.  I remember spending my summer vacations in her little adobe home while she cooked us eggs and beans.  Made flour tortillas from scratch and never failed to make me my favorite buñuelos.  With her hands cupped ever so femininely, she would grab us and hug us.  The only way a grandmother could.  Transcending such a special kind of love.  Her love. 

She gave me the best memories of my summers in Mexico.  Letting us run wild, sleeping in late, and helping her wash clothes by hand.   I can still hear her laugh and see her smile.  And I will never forget how she would always say, "mis ninas! quales ninas, mis ninotas!"  as we grew and grew.   

The distance never mattered.  She was 2000 miles from me and yet would ask how my music was coming along.  She'd send us love through telephone lines when we'd call her on her birthday, which coincidentally, according to her, was on Christmas eve.  

But my favorite memory of her is when she'd sit outside on her stoop and watch the street awaken with the life of it's inhabitants.  Her life wasn't easy, but she's a constant reminder that life is worth living for and making it the most with what you have.  

Today, I remember her.  The same way I remember her when we would rush through her front door at midnight unexpectedly and she would smile happy to see us.  Then we'd all gather around the dining table and catch up in the dim morning light.  

Happy Dia de los Muertos!