By Renata Brandão

"How can you bloom? My brother is dead!" Those were the first words of a young girl after her brother's wake. She kept staring at this orange and red flower and could not understand how it could bloom so strikingly on such a sad day.

Death is never an easy thing. No matter how old you are, married or single, a man or a woman. When it breaks through the doors of our routine, it is not an easy thing to handle. It is never an easy thing to handle, but it should not be a sad time. Or at least that is what the Mexican culture tries to beautifully "teach" us every year. Death should not be mourned, quite the opposite, it should be celebrated.

In that way, every 1^st and 2^nd of November death is celebrated in Mexico. The "Day of the Dead", or "Día de los Muertos", is a millenary Mexican tradition that commemorates death and the dead with a vast array of colours, flowers and music, although it sounds unusual for us, in Mexico nobody is upset on "All Soul's Day".

By the contrary, Mexicans handle this day in such a light way that it almost bares the
playful ground. In a beautiful way they renovate traditional symbols associated to death by transforming it into fun, laughs and joyfulness. The most common examples of this are the sugary or chocolate skulls that are cooked, decorated with sequins and labelled with the names of deceased relatives of each family.

In fact, skulls are a recurrent symbol of this Mexican festivity. They can be seen everywhere with their colourful and feathered sombreros, wearing huge smiles and inviting us to the celebration.

More than that, they are inviting the dear dead ones, because according to Mexican popular belief during these two days the dead has divine permission to visit relatives and friends and for that reason, people decorate their homes with flowers, candles and incense, and prepare the favorite foods of the departed.

As a matter of fact, the pre-Hispanic Mexicans used to believe that they were immortal. To them, death was merely a different way to live. More than that, they used to say that men, when they died, did not disappear but started living again, almost as a dream, and would live in a parallel world as spirits or Gods.

That young girl was me, and today, after being imbibed in such beautiful and creative culture, I enjoy the feeling of thinking of my brother as this God that is still living in this pure and magical world that Mexico created. More than that, now I understand something I could not back then; death does not necessarily mean sadness and grieving and if that young girl ever finds that flower again, she will now say "thank you for celebrating it with me." Let's all celebrate with Mexico on this joyful day.


Day of the Dead music


Day of the Dead celebration


Day of the Dead offering