I ran some errands on my own today and when I have time alone I like to drive without any music on just to reflect and think about everything I am grateful for.
With today being Dia De Los Muertos my mind has been focused a lot on the lives of my ancestors and what they continue to teach me through death. It’s interesting to me how a change in perspective can bring about a different vision of how we see not only ourselves but the family from which we come from.
I used to only see myself coming from a family that was poor, a family that had seen many hardships and if I was going to make anything out of myself I was going to have to work hard for it. This was something I would try to fight against, I used to put so much of my effort into covering up my mental illness, covering up my perceived poverty through things so that no one would know who I really was or where I came from.
When my abuelita passed away, her death shook me to the core.
Slowly but surely I stopped caring so much about what other people thought. I remember how much my abuelita cared about how people saw her and in our family we all have our own memories of how she would say “pero k va dicir la gente?” (but what are people going to say?). This woman would sleep in her makeup in case someone would drop by at 5am to visit and while you may be sitting here thinking 5am is too early for someone to just drop by you would be surprised to know that was actually a common occurrence! My abuelita lived with a disability and wouldn’t even wear shoes that wear shoes that would help support her feet because she didn’t want anyone to notice how frail her legs actually were.
In life she taught us all about strength, generosity and discipline. The lessons she had taught through her death have gone deeper showing me how living our lives in order to maintain appearances may give others beautiful memories but is that a life lived or a role played?
My abuelito passed away this year due to COVID and he has taught me that making the time to connect is worth the effort. There are things that money can’t buy and I will never regret setting a reminder on my phone to call him every Monday at 10am. His life has taught our family that there must be balance between the demands of the material world and the way we wish life could be.
Tonight, I honor my familia with offerings of food and drinks.
However, the most important lesson they could have taught me is that because we have loved each other so much I must honor my self each day. Not who I think I should be or who anyone else would like me to be, simply honoring my own truth and humanity. I believe that our ancestors are always guiding us and uplifting us to manifest all of the beauty within us out into the world, when we shine in our truth and act in alignment with our integrity and values we bring healing to our lineage and we make our ancestors proud.
With that belief, I set out on my journey once again, acknowledging their successes and failures and making them proud while I continue to remember my truth and act on it every day.
