Long Live Day of the Dead

Summary


Dead: Woman's battle with cancer brings new meaning to celebration

Imagine creating a feast -- gently kneading dough, baking bread, rolling sugar into sweets, simmering chocolate and other spicy sauces to accompany homemade enchiladas, tamales and a host of other delicacies. Then imagine filling a picnic basket with these foods and making a pilgrimage to the cemetery.

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Long Live Day of the Dead

If you are one of the many people who celebrate el Da de los Muertos -- the Day of the Dead -- this is a ritual you repeat every fall.

While the customs -- and the exact dates -- of the holiday known as the Day (or Days) of the Dead vary by country and region, the simplest way to describe this holiday is to say it is a time when family members who have died are remembered.

In Mexico, this festival welcomes back the souls of the dead who return each year to visit with the living and partake of some of the earthly pleasures -- foods, cigarettes or liquor, for example -- they loved when they were alive.

"The Mexican has no qualms, has no problems getting close and personal with death. He chases after it, mocks it, courts it, hugs it, sleeps with it; it is his favorite plaything and his most lasting love," wrote Octavio Paz, the Nobel Prize winning Mexican author, in an essay in The Mexican Day of the Dead: An Anthology.

The...

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