This was Mike’s holiday. He loves the food, didn’t mind the traffic driving to Long Island, couldn’t wait for pumpkin pie. Covid, you cruel thief. You took away so much from me.

This Thanksgiving I remember my dad, the biggest pumpkin pie fan that ever existed (especially my mom’s extra spicy version). He called it “Punkie Pie” and you knew never to put whipped cream on his enormous piece. It “masked the taste of a perfect thing,” he said. He would always make sure there was enough for a cold piece the next day for breakfast, eaten no utensils necessary.

Halloween to my husband Mike was bigger than Christmas. For a guy who never took off of work, this was the one day he would rush home to be there to go trick or treating with the kids. His job was to take them out at night to all the spooky houses. He drove our big old green van and when the door opened it was like the clown car at the circus. Everyone would get out and run up and down a street and keep going till very late. I don’t know who had more fun–Mike or the kids. Me? by that time I was with a cup of tea, exhausted!!

Such great memories.

In Jody’s mind, Halloween ran from July 5th until the night before Thanksgiving. After the Independence Day holiday, grocery stores would start featuring bags of Halloween candy. Each week, Jody would buy another bag. “You never want to run out of candy” was his mantra. Before I knew it, there were at least a dozen bags of candy stuffed into a kitchen drawer. That was a little bit over the top, given that, normally, we only had about fifteen kids come knocking on our door. It took me a while to catch on. During the day, while I was at work, Jody was snacking on the accumulated sweets! This would continue after Halloween until he had polished off all the candy that was left over.

Jody also insisted that we (read that as “I”) carve a pumpkin. Our tradition started with Jody sketching out the face that he wanted carved in the pumpkin. He would sit back and laugh while I performed a lobotomy on the unsuspecting gourd. He chuckled as I exhibited my revulsion as I grabbed handfuls of guts from inside the pumpkin. Before we knew it, the surgery was over. We would light a votive candle, put it inside the pumpkin, and, turning off the lights, sit back and enjoy a few pieces of all that leftover candy.

Happy Halloween in Heaven. I’m sure the candy is sweet.

We drove from Paducah to Frankfort to be at the Memorial. It’s beautiful. We live in a community of Covid deniers. We cannot speak about how or why dad died without hearing negative comments about his heart problems, and how that’s what really killed him, not Covid.

Well, being at the Memorial feels like a home for our grief. No hiding, no lying. When I stood there and saw myself in the mirrored sphere, I became a part of it, and everyone else who comes to visit is a part of it too.

So, this is what it means. It’s a neutral, lovely, safe space.