Halloween

We did something yesterday.

We decorated our house for Halloween again.

I didn't do this last year. I couldn't. The large tupperware bins that we store our ghosts and pumpkins and little orange lights and blow up lawn ornaments in, and the extension cords in our garage that they plug into, they all remind me of my husband.

Extension cords remind me of my husband.

But yesterday I drank my coffee and looked around the house and looked at our bare lawn with no sign of the season except for one lonely pumpkin sitting on our front steps, and I looked at my children sitting in the living room, like it was any other Sunday, and I thought "enough." And I thought "it is time to do this." And I thought "the kids will be so happy, and extension cords don't remind them of their father."

So I put on my sweatshirt and sweatpants and my sneakers and I told the kids to put on boots over their footie pajamas and I said "let's make Halloween."

It was all they wanted. After I drank my coffee and put on my sweatshirt, it was also everything I wanted.

I walked through the wet fire of leaves on the ground, I walked through the fall on my yard, and I opened the shed that I had not opened since my husband died. The tupperware bins had cobwebs and real spiders and that made me laugh while I dragged them to the front of our house.

 And then the kids and I made Halloween. In the damp autumn air of a late October Sunday, we put up little pumpkins and big pumpkins and incredibly unscary ghosts and a silly blow up tree and a skeleton and twinkling lights. And I couldn't reach the top of the trees with the lights but that was ok. And the kids argued excitedly over where to put things and then agreed on their placement, and my baby boy ran around and pointed at everything, and suddenly it was a new memory in my head and heart.

And later, at night, while the children were eating their dinner, I snuck into the garage and plugged everything in, and our front yard lit up, and the children jumped out of their chairs and ran outside, and they laughed and smiled, and suddenly that too was a new memory in my heart and head.

Enough. We will make Halloween again.