End Of Summer

 May god bless my mother. 

I know how much effort she put into Halloween for her boys. The house was decorated with all manner of pumpkins, witches and skulls. The pantry was stuffed with candy not just for her own three sons who never met a Snickers they could not consume, but for the trick or treaters from our neighborhood and beyond. 

As I have mentioned here before, I grew up in an era in which the focus for October 31st was on children. In retrospect, this is a little odd, since the origins of Samhain, a Gaelic holiday in which "the dark half" of the year was welcomed in. The veil between the living and the spirit world was thinnest then, and "treats" were left out for the mischievous things from the other side. 

It wasn't until the Pope decided in the eighth century to absorb this festival of spookiness into "All Hallows Eve," as a prelude to "All Saints Day." 

It was sometime in the early to mid twentieth century that my mother, a little girl back then, worried about being invited to a friend's Halloween party. She lived in the tiny mountain town of Granby, Colorado, and at that time it was mostly a wide spot in the road across the Continental Divide. She was nervous about going out into the night. She was nervous about being part of a gathering. She was nervous. 

She passed a lot of this social awkwardness on to me.

But on that particular evening, I was still a potential knot of anxiety. She sat on her bed, staring out the window of her bedroom, which opened onto a vacant lot, and from there she would see her neighbor's house. All lit up and decorated for the occasion. She stared off into that night and watched the revelry with her ghost costume wadded up next to her. It seemed to her that the festivities were taking place across some vast space. Trapped in a world of her own apprehension, in spite of her parents' urging, she never left her bed. 

That was my mother's Halloween memory. 

As mentioned earlier, I had my own struggles with social events, but they weren't centered on All Hallows Eve. My mom made sure of that. Plenty of Snickers and a house lit up like one of those Celtic bonfires. 

Thanks, mom.