This mommyвЂ™s heart smiled to watch all gathered yet again around the counter, creating their small figures of dough, sprinkling with colored sugars and decorations, and then the smiles on their faces when they each took that first bite of the bread fresh from the oven. When Wyatt asked if I had made, I was overcome with both maternal guilt at not making and a sense of deep gratitude and joy that he had missed! We altered our traditions last year and made when all came home for Thanksgiving. Fly, Luke, fly.ДЇor all of those lost to coronavirus, a collection of leaves I found under the heart-draped tree along my running path, tucked into the birdвЂ™s nest. Luke defined himself as a spiritual being, imbued with the traditions of Peru where he lived and climbed for so many years. In our college community, we unexpectedly lost a well-loved colleague and dear friend.

Her wine glass honors her life, as well as represents my decision to remove wine glasses from my own table on November 1 last year, so I could focus fully on healing.Д¬orn honors my Uncle Ray, a farmer who lived life with such kindness, generosity, love, and a twinkle in his eye. Agatha is new to the altar this year.В Breast cancer has touched many womenвЂ™s lives in my family. The beauty and delicacy of the glass reflects Grandma JanetвЂ™s life.В St. Agatha, Patron Saint of Breast Cancer, Nurses, and WomenвЂ™s Issues, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Virgen de Guadalupe (Artist, Jil GurulГ©). The altar holds a treasured wine glass of my momвЂ™s mother, Grandma Janet, as JanetвЂ™s mother, my Great-Grammie Lucille looks on as a teenager from a black-and-white photo above. The unimaginable-as I placed each piece, I thought of how very much like this expresses where we find ourselves in life right now around the world. Never did the great-grandparents and grandparents that I honor imagine a DГa de los Muertos altar. So many historic heritage languages and cultures fill the altar. The worlds, each with a distinct culture, come together to create the mosaic of the whole.ДЄs I place the flowers for my German Lutheran grandparents, Grandpa Wink and Grandma Anna, I hear my Grandpa Wink saying the LordвЂ™s Prayer in German to delight my cousins and I as children. Here on the altar, prairie and farmland come together with the Southwest German, Welsh, Irish, and English with Latino Protestant with Catholic past with present. My life is one of a fronterista, where worlds overlap: prairie and Southwest, rural and international, landscape literature and linguistic human rights. I am a woman of the borderlands, as used by GlorГa AnzaldГєa. The landscape of our altar reflects the landscape of my life. When my Grandma Mary embroidered Van GoghвЂ™s Sunflowers, when my Great-Grandma Grace ground the coffee before dawn in the sod hut on the ranch, never could they have imaged these pieces where they are now. MomвЂ™s hope chest creates the foundation for the altar. So many new souls honored on the altar by Latinos in the US and throughout Mexico. Composing the altar this year felt especially sacred amidst the pandemic and so many people lost. DГa de los Muertos is an integral element in our familyвЂ™s life rhythms. I first learned of this tradition when I fell in love with Frida Kahlo in my early 20вЂ™s.

In Latino tradition, DГa de los Muertos honors our loved ones who have passed with altars laden with flowers, photos, and candles.

DГa de los Muertos, All SoulвЂ™s Day, November 1st.

Dia de los muertos altar flowers