I don’t want to take away any happy memories a parent may have of Halloweens past.
I know some families and some communities have celebrations that focus primarily on dressing up, more funny-than-scary traditions and even highlighting the connection between those who remain and those gone before that transcends generations.
I respect that.
What hurts MY heart (and maybe only my heart) is the elevation of death and dying to a spectator sport.
I’ll never get used to that. And I don’t want to get used to it.
❤ Melanie
Except for a few years early in childhood, I have never liked Halloween. The combination of darkness and creepiness makes my skin crawl.
And now, this side of child loss it makes me angry.
Why? Because for one night (really, for a couple of weeks!) Americans not only think about death, they spend millions of dollars celebrating it.
Not celebrating ACTUAL death-not the absolute horror of being told your child is gone, gone, gone. Instead it’s a fake, “funny”, silly made-up mockery of a very real, very awful truth.
Sometimes the “celebrations” involve desecrating cemeteries.
And that makes me even angrier.
Graveyards are the final resting place of other people’s loved ones. My son is there! You don’t have the right to make his grave part of your truth or dare game.
So just don’t do it!
What makes me even more upset is that people will talk for weeks about what they want to “be” for Halloween yet shut down the first mention of a bereaved parent’s pain.
Conversation about costumes, haunted houses and scary movies is invited, conversation about burial and broken hearts is taboo.
Why, why, why do Americans embrace this paper mache version of death yet refuse to acknowledge or embrace the reality of death in daily life?
It’s no game. It’s no holiday. It’s nothing to laugh about or make jolly over.
It’s a very real, very painful, very awful part of my life.
I won’t participate in making light of it.
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