Ah, Samhain...the time to remember your departed loved ones, and maybe hang out with them.
I must admit it still feels a little presumptuous, even after all these years, to ask them to join us here. I'll be polite about it, of course, but I can't help feeling a little shy.
You see, there was only about one time it felt like I was being kind to them instead of just the other way around. That was two years ago (could it have been that long?) when a friend passed away, too young and rather by surprise. He was born sick and didn't even reach drinking age when the swine flu got him.
I thought he might need some reassurance, some encouragement, to get where he's going and know it was all right to go there. I planned on helping him on Samhain night, when the veil between our worlds is the thinnest. Apparently he got the message before I got there. He thoughtfully left me some brochures in the dreamtime 'waiting room' to let all of his friends and family know he was all right and not to be sad.
Even there, he was doing ME a kindness.
I am considering what to do this year. Most of the people I've lost were family. I'll ponder the relatives who will give me an earful, relatives I am afraid to dredge up, and relatives who never knew me--and those are just the living ones. When I think of my dead ancestors, I realize how little I know of them, and them of me, despite in some cases spending years together in life. (Again, the same can be said of the living.)
It's fun to muse over what Grandma would say about my hair or whether my great aunt would have enjoyed skydiving (I bet she would). I won't ask them about these things, since I'm pretty sure they don't mean much outside the physical realm. Instead, I may simply invite them and enjoy their presence, if they desire, without asking anything else of them.
