My Ofrenda

Mike Willock writes: Last week included, after Halloween (October 31), All Saints Day (November 1) and Dia de los Muertos (November 2). Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a holiday in Mexico when families remember the relatives and friends that have gone before. They make an ofrenda (offering table) with pictures of lost relatives and items of food or other things that their relatives enjoyed in life. The Pixar movie Coco is a wonderful animated tale about a little boy Miguel and his old grandmother Mama Coco. If you haven’t seen it, you should. You can stream it on Disney.

This week I have been thinking about the pictures and other items that would go on my ofrenda. I found slides of my paternal grandfather John and grandmother Verna, one with two of her brothers and their wives gathered around the family table with Barbara.

I found a remembrance of the Celina, Texas, farmhouse written by my mother in the 1990’s. I found a picture of the old barn that was the subject of many photos and some local paintings. I found a picture of Barbara at the front steps of the old farmhouse (razed in 1977), a picture of the pasture to the west, a picture of the big field across the road to the south, and the old Aermotor windmill that made a lovely creaking noise as it lifted water from the well. One picture had my 85-year-old grandfather John on his last John Deere tractor together with our 3-year-old son John.

I found a picture of my maternal grandmother Stevenson and her home in Irving, Texas, and a picture of her with her younger son, my uncle Pete. I found pictures of her home, some items from my grandfather’s workshop, and one of the pumphouse behind her home. She tilled her vegetable garden into her 80s. She loved the music of a young Elvis Presley, and Les Paul and Mary Ford. I found a picture of my younger brother Joe, now deceased, when he traveled with Barbara and me to Irving and Celina in 1977. I’ve got more boxes of slides to go through, looking for pictures of Barbara’s mother and father. I have one in mind especially. And then, there are five big file boxes of old film prints I want to look through to add to my ofrenda.

This afternoon I unexpectedly found a few photos from the 2011 trip John and I took to Tucson with his 8-month-old son Charlie. John was eager for Charlie to meet his Tucson relatives while they were still alive. One shows four generations of Willocks – my father John, my brothers Steve and Joe with me, and my son John with his son Charlie. My father was then 92 years old. Charlie made the trip with us on Southwest Airlines, taking his afternoon nap lying across our tray tables.

In the movie, it is said you do not die until you are no longer remembered by the last living person who knew you. As we observe All Saints Day, we remember with love all those who have gone before us – the lessons they taught us – the joys we shared together – the way they shaped our lives and those of our children. We give thanks to God for the gift of their lives that live on in us and through us today, and we look forward to the time we can all be together around the banquet table of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What’s on your ofrenda?

God is good. All the time. Thank you, Lord.