The pumpkins, candies and neighbourly hordes of goblins and ghosts shouting “Trick or treat!” reminded me of the ancients and their beliefs that the souls of the dead must be appeased.
What about the days that follow after Halloween?

All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are time set aside to broker peace between the living and the dead.
Whether you are pagan or religious, new age believer or doubter-at-large, these are the days when we, Catholics, traditionally acknowledge that the gone are not forgotten.

The seasonal metaphors of reaping and rotting, harvest and darkness, leaf-fall and killing frost supply us with plentiful memento mori (Latin for a reminder of death/ mortality).
Whatever is or isn’t there when we die, death both frightens and intrigues us.

Graves are usually decorated on these first days of November with candles and fresh flowers.
Relatives gather round old stones to give the dead their due of prayers and remembrances.

Each stone on which we carve our names and dates is an effort to make a human statement about death, memory and belief.
Our kind was here.
They lived, they died, they made their differences.
For the ancient and the modern, the grave is an essential station.

But less so, lately, we walked past the graveyards and kept the dead at greater distance, consigned to oblivions we seldom visit, estranged and denatured.

I had only been to the cemetery 2 or 3 times.
I was present at Aunt Theresa's burial and vaguely remembered the process.
It was a painful sight/ experience for many, the pain was much more compared to a cremation.
Pat Jie-Jie broke down and wanted to reach out to Aunt Theresa's body, Mum fainted.
The sight of your loved one being buried is comparable to seeing your loved one slowly sinking into the deep sea.
These days, we are given the option of cremation, a slightly less painful alternative.
But few folks ever saw the fire, not for the faint-hearted of course.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Genesis 3:19 says:
"By the sweat of your face will you earn your food, until you return to the ground, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return".

The ashes are then placed in the parish colombarium.
Sunday afternoon is often spent at cemetries and colombariums during this time of the year.

Made me feel kind of guilty when Mum mentioned that I haven't been visiting Gong-gong & Po-po at the colombarium since they were cremated.