El Día de los Muertos
Yesterday, November 2nd, we celebrated the Day of the Dead in San Francisco with the annual procession in the Mission. We dressed in our dead best with skeleton faces as is the tradition. Maya wore her special dead wedding dress that contains all the names of her dead and we wrote our hamsters names on the dress to honor their passing. 
Our altar at home was covered with sugar skulls, pictures of our dead, their favorite foods, and candles to welcome and honor the spirits on this day.
We arrived early at the procession to see the dancers and hear the invocation by our friend, Francisco Alarcón before beginning the procession which ended at Garfield Park. Zai handed out tiny drawings she had made to passers-by and also placed several on the beautiful altars in the park. We honored our recently passed hamsters, Candy Rainbow and Little Black by making a small altar with a candle, a picture, and some of their favorite food.
Several of the altars encouraged the community to participate by writing the names of their own dead and leaving them on the altars. Zai enjoyed participating and drew pictures of her deceased animals and hung them on the altars. Matthew remembered his Aunt Mel who passed away in 2007 and Maya released old ghosts. We shared some pan de muerto (bread of the dead) as we visited the altars. It was a wonderful celebration and remembrance for all those that have passed.
As we walked home we watched the full moon following us like an old friend. We admired her round brightness and how it had lit our journey through the night. We talked about the forever-ness of spirit and how nothing ever dies, but simply drops the body. Zai talked about how we get to visit the spirits on this special night. She thought they waited nearby until we were asleep to come visit us in our dreams. We wondered if Candy Rainbow might visit and we looked forward to the possibility.
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