I was away on Dia des los Muertos, but when we got back on the first the girls and I put up our annual altar. This year as we arranged our icons and sugar skulls I noted how this practice, once so unfamiliar, has become increasingly rich for us a family.

This year I turned a postcard of Vincent VanGogh  into another icon for our memorial. It made me wonder, who would you put in a shrine of *8 people who have influenced you? Here are my *8 Saints and Sinners. (God love ‘em!)

1. Vincent VanGogh - a soulmate who helps me journey through pain and creativity.
2. Rosa Parks – an icon made by my husband, who is always inspired by bravery for the sake of justice.
3. Simeon David Chapman – our first child who was stillborn. The girls love putting his tiny tin shrine up for All Souls.
4. Pauline Jarrett Mee - my Grandmother, making her second appearance this year at the shrine.
5. John Everett Mee – my Grandfather, who’s been on our shrine since just after Cate was born. The last thing he did was fly to Seattle to meet her. When he landed back in California, he went straight to the hospital and never returned. But he was determined to deliver Cate’s traditional pair of baby cowboy boots–black with silver sparkles. That was my Buddy.
6. St. Catherine of Sienna — my favorite historical saint and the woman Catie is named after.
7. Mama God – a tiny clay sculpture helps me remember (and regain) the Feminine Divine.
8. Jesus — I firmly believe that “Jesus got ‘jacked.” I miss the real guy, don’t you?

Who are your *8 Saints and Sinners? Tell us in the comments below, or better yet, grab a *8Things  button and play along. Don’t forget that we need the unique permalink in the list. Thanks for playing!

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Rebecca and I as Lady Katrina, a central figure of Día de los Muertos. More pics here.

Last week while I was on vacation, my Grandmother passed away. She was frail, and ill and ready to be released from this mortal coil. And so it is with both sorrow and contentment that we greet her passing and honor her memory. This means, that for the first time this year, her icon will join Grandpa’s on our mantelpiece as we celebrate Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

Día de los Muertos, also known as All Souls or All Saints, is an annual remembrance of those who have passed before us. Primarily celebrated in Mexico, and by people of Mexican heritage, Día de los Muertos is a gift from the Latino heritage dating back to the age of the Aztecs. During this holiday children and infants who have died are remembered on November 1st, while adults are remembered on November 2nd. (Although this is flexible, and varies in practice.) Colorful decorations adorn family burial plots where family members picnic and tell stories; and sugar skulls are bedecked with colored icing and sparkles in a celebration of both life and death.

In our family, we’ve been practicing Día de los Muertos and All Saint’s for the past four years. We open up the living room and haul out the art supplies, inviting friends to create portable memorials to their loved ones and/or to saints both traditional and modern who have guided and inspired. Tracy Zollinger Turner of Tiny Mantras wrote a lovely post about celebrating All Saints in New Orleans. She says:

“As I understand it, All Saints Day is about remembering the people no longer with us, who still live under our skin — the ones that we look to for guidance, even if we can only imagine what they might say to us now. I try to think of those people in my own life often, but work and trick or treaters and traffic and phone calls get in the way. Today, I will make a point to remember them, one by one.”

Doesn’t that sound nice? Wouldn’t it be lovely to do that together? Hurrah! We still have time! Here’s what I’m suggesting, let’s remember the people who’s wisdom and laughter have touched us by creating memorials to them for Día de los Muertos. It’s easy. Show us a picture of the person you’re remembering and post it on your Flickr account. Write a post about someone you love on your blog. Or, you could create your own crafty icon of the saint you adore. Get it online by November 1st, and I’ll include it in my Monday morning post for BlogHer on November 3rd. Just email the permalink to moi at magpie-girl dot com

Need some help? Kathy Cano-Murillo of the Crafty Chica certainly has the right vibe going over at her place. At Shutter Sisters, Jen Lemen gives us this remembrance of her father (who is still with us…but still, it’s a good idea for an alternative portraiture of someone you love and want to recall, don’t you think. Hmm…what photo of grandma could you crop?) And Kate at Sweet:Salty once again touches our hearts with her post on remembering the little ones who have left us too soon, too soon. Plus, I have to say my little group of celebrants has done a lovely job making memorials out what my children call “cut, color, and paste” you can find them listed below.

I do hope you’ll join in the festivities! I’m looking forward to getting your email with your posts by November 1st. Happy Día de los Muertos!

A Memorial to Rosa Parks (by Paul Chapman)
A Modern Saint: Derrida (by Lindell Alderman)
Infant Loss: Remembering Simeon

Cross-posted from BlogHer.com.

A tiny tin-shrine memorial with a dried rose from my hospital flowers. Made for Dia de los Muertos celebrations at Monkfish Abbey, November ‘05.

“Lord, let now your servant, depart in peace according to thy word. For my eyes have seen thy salvation…”

He was very tiny, about the length of my arm from my elbow to my wrist. The nurse, nervous and new at this kind of sorrow, had eventually managed to wrap him in blankets, one small arm extending outside of the heap, his hand so frail I was afraid to touch it lest I tear his fragile skin.

We had wept so many tears for him, our doomed son. Tears in the dark sonogram room; tears when my knees collapsed in the hospital stairway; tears when we told our parents; tears as we waited all the long week to see him delivered; tears in the cold procedures room as the new nurse fled and we were left to deliver our baby alone.

There were more tears now, as we played him special songs, anointed his head in our own private baptism, sang him chants from my Lutheran childhood. Tear as we set him in the infant warmer — now disconnected and cold — to say goodbye.

Later, a union would go on strike and his ashes would wait for weeks at the crematorium before we could claim them. A small plastic bag in a square cardboard box, sealed tight with a twist tie and silver dog tag bearing not his name, but his case number, long and unfamiliar. We would cry again then, finally retrieving his remains, and dusting the water with him on the edge of the sound.

My mother cried these same tears for her first child, drugged and foggy as she came to from the delivery room. Empty arms wondering where her son had gone. My aggrieved father explaining the still birth, full term but not fulfilled. She never got to see her son, to hold his hand, to say goodbye. It just wasn’t done in those days. The hospital ferried him away without even a gravestone. The nursery packed up and painted before she was released to come home. Even now, he doesn’t have a name.

As a young teen, I read a story where a girl hides from school bullies in the shed of a cemetery. There she finds a statue of a child who had died long ago. The base of the statue read, “Our beloved Benjamin.” That’s how I think of my long lost brother — as Benjamin, uncle to Simeon, who also left too soon.

It is not within my rights to name my mother’s son as Benjamin, but I can name–did name–my own. And today, on this day to remember the dead, I remember Simeon David Chapman, who made me a mother, who is this mother’s only son.