RE: [ranchos]

Hi! Yes, I also agree that Yolanda has brought back a lot of memories for us with her nice story! To this day I feel bad when I step on a grave even if it is sometimes unavoidable. I can remember going to the cemetery with my mother when I was VERY young and being told the same thing - "don't step on the graves......don't make too much noise.......stop running........behave!" while she was cleaning the tombstones of her parents. While we never had the "Dia de Los Muertos" celebrations where I lived when I was young in South Texas, I have been fortunate enough to have been in Oaxaca, MX in 1997 for Dia de Los Muertos. They do the beautiful "altares" and sand painting on the floors of different galleries and homes, and it is all just wonderful! Of course, I especially enjoyed eating the wonderful "tamales de flor de calabasa" which I had never had before. They are deliciosos!!!!! Oaxaca really knows how to put on a great festival for the deceased ancestors! Now the custom is becoming more popular even here in San Antonio! Thanks for bringing back great memories for me!

Yolanda: what a beautiful picture you painted for all of us. It shocked my memories in a good way. Thank you. It reminded me that my abuela Dona Lola, que en paz descance, was also so serious about the flowers. And we had to walk such a long way from her house to the cementary. She did all the work; I guess we were there just to keep her company and carry the empty buckets back. We were a small family so there were just two or three graves. Two of the graves were of her sons who died as teenagers. She sighed a lot while she washed the tombstones. And we little cousins learned respect; we would be stopped if we got too noisy or chased each other among the graves and especially if we walked on the graves. She said very little when she corrected us; she just looked at us and shook her head. That was enough. I'm the head Tia now, so maybe its time to revive the custom in my immediate family. Around here silk flowers seem to be appropriate. Again, thanks.

Yolanda Bobby Perez <windrocklili@...> wrote:

I think the reason our relatives didn"t speak of the death of a child is obvious, the pain is overwhelming and in the telling come the tears. "recordar es volver a vivir" In researching my grandfather Jose Anastacio Medina I discovered four of his siblings dying at a very young age, only he and his sister Margarita survived. Unfortunately they both lost their parents at a very young age and were sent to live with their mother's sister in Santa Rosalia de Camargo, Chihuahua.        And speaking of the dead.....

Now that El dia de los muertos is around the corner I recall my abuela materna Aurelia Yanez de Saavedra going to Ciudad Juarez and visiting El Mercado Cuahtemoc to purchase bunches of cut flowers in orange, yellow, white and brown. She would bring them back and put them in tinas full of water to keep them from wilting. I still remember the vivid colors and the aroma of the crisantemos or "flores de muertos" as she called them. Later in the evening we would all help arrange floral bouquets for the many graves of her loved ones. This yearly ritual began very early on Nov 2 and it was a whole day activity. My abuelo Julio, would bring his huge truck and load all of the tinas full of flowers, they would also take brooms, rakes, shovels and hoes to clean up each gravesite.  Not only did they cleanup the area but sometimes they had to repair or paint the crosses or make new ones. I know that for many people in Mexico the custom is to setup an altar with food and drinks, but in my family, after all that hard work,  WE ate the food. It was a good feeling to see all the different families in the area honoring their dead. My favorite part was watching my grandma choose each bouquet and arrange several of them on each grave, she would then get a can full of water and sprinkle the freshly raked dirt.  You know, whenever it rains in the desert there is a very special smell that one never forgets and that smell brings back memories of Mis Abuelos and a lost tradition.

Saludos, Yolanda Medina Perez

El Paso, Tx.