Una Ofrenda / An Offering

"Test results are back. Looks good! All negative. "

The great news brought no relief. The calm never came. A reflex of expecting the worst and days of worry turned into sobby tears. You'd think that this good news would be welcomed, but my mind wouldn't have it. It fluttered to a world of what-ifs and dead-ends. A new type of infection spread itself over me:

"What if I’d gotten a different result?"

"How would I have told my family?"

"And if I had gotten sick?"

"What if I had died --

-- and what about when I die?"

Like a stuck song that you can't stop humming, the reminder that I'd die plays itself in a loop in my head. Drowning thoughts of what it means to not exist. And where I'll go. And what will be. Driving, on the way to work - You won't be around forever. In the middle of the day while writing on the whiteboard - I'm gonna die. Interrupting me while watching my shows - You'll be dead someday.

For months, this time was marked by easy tears. Like the character in one of Hemingway's short stories that thinks he'll die soon, I "cried easily at things of no importance." My days drained of color. The orange faded. The reds lost their shine. The yellows a faded vanilla. Even music was unable to lift this fog. Food was in perpetual need of salt; naps helped me hide from the dying thoughts. The dread made sunny days gloomy and wrecked so many pretty ones. The brain and gut, in sync, announced the heavy headline: You're going to die one day.

Sleep’s interrupted and cut into tiresome strips. Waking at 4 am on Sundays to stare at the man on TV in his flannel shirt sanding a weathered banister, unable to muster an interest in that old house. Public affair shows with people in suits talking about the economy blah stock market blah blah box office blah blah blah.

A bolt comes- un relámpago - and the breath slows, the heart pauses and then reboots itself into a random pattern, a little off, then faster, slowing, the pulse way off, its beat out of time because, well... you know. I'm gonna die one day.

"A mild PTSD response to your test results," the therapist intoned. A few cold sessions were all I could take before I found warmer help elsewhere.

During a weekly family carne asada, I shared my fear of death to my folks. My dad, not the sharing-deep-feelings-type, shrugged, his hands outstretched.

"Claro que nos vamos a morir." Of course, we're all gonna die.

"Todos. Yo. Tu mama. Tú. ¿Y qué?" All of us. Me. Your mom. You. So what?

Simple brazen logic. He was right. This slap to the brain began to stop the freefall. Stabilizing myself, I set out to get away from this worry. Taking walks in warm sunlight. Sharing with others my anxiety. Journaling plans for the long term. Looking out to the brown hills of the San Fernando Valley and knowing that the land was here before me and would be here after me. These thoughts calmed me, and my dad’s matter-of-fact reminder got me to accept the mortal situation.

And then November rolled around.

My first Dia de Muertos altar for my students was a simple one - tables and boxes at varying heights. Colorful fabrics of bright yellow, hot pink and neon green. There wouldn't be any staid black and sad purple cloth for this one. Over time, trips to Guadalajara and encargos from relatives helped grow the figurine collection of smiling ceramic skulls, skeletons in the shape of a cross, and colorful tiles showing los muertos at work, the dead at the beach, cadavers drinking at a bar. In these representations, the cute skeleton figures ride bikes, play tennis, sing songs, attend school, and read books. Just like the living! Get it? You’ll be dead someday! In the meantime, live it up!

The Dead live - long live the Dead! ¡ ¡ ¡Qué vivan los muertos!

The tradition of the Altar holds that our loved ones reunite with us for that day and are drawn to their favorite earthly pleasures. I place some candles, cempazuchitl flowers, also known as Mexican marigolds, a coffee cup, a special delicacy known as pan de muerto (bread in the shape of bones), a plate of rice, and a shot of tequila. The shot is for my abuelita.

The singular image of La Catrina, the former living, now un-mortal matriarch of the day, in her long, embroidered gown, stiff collar, and red lips stands at the center, chin up, arms in balance in an almost regal pose.

The Altar grows each year and sharing it with my students at our school helps soothe the fear of my shuffling mortal coil. We paint half of our faces white and black, mimicking skulls, with tiny bits of color, leaving the other half untouched as flesh. This symbolizes the coexistence of we the living and our dead, and reminds us of where we are now, in life, and where we’ll all end up, after.

Photos of aunties and grandparents no longer with us complete the ritual. Brown-toned photos show snippets of lives from happier days - smiling anniversaries, beach vacation Polaroids, blurry selfies. Recent prints from social media; an X-ray scan of a baby that never met her parents. Pictures of pets and a handsome Mexican actor from black and white flicks. And in a brown boxed frame, a picture of yours truly holding a piñata during my 8th birthday. Beside it, I place a stopped clock to drive the point home: Tick tock, tick tock. Because I'm going to die one day. And it’s…ok.

I read once that death only happens to other people. This display of memories puts a lie to that. Because here's death - in my face, sculpted in miniature, as colorful as calaveras, and as comforting as cafe con leche.

Contrasting death to appreciate life - that's the best therapy. You need the one to know the other. November 2nd looms again, ready to remind me that these days are tick tick ticking away. And that, one day, I'll be gone.

"Of course," says my dad. "So what?"

Death now to me is as inevitable as L.A. traffic, long lines at Costco - as uninvited as gray hair and unwelcome as wrinkles.

El Altar, its colorful fabrics and cute figurines take the fear of death away. Like a bright sponge, the altar soaks up my inky fear. Now, I don’t think of death as an existential dread but accept It for the price of being alive. It’s a brutal, but fair trade.  You can't have one without the other. That’s the mortal contract made at birth. With joys, come sorrows. With light, comes darkness. That’s the deal: we all get a stack of days, and then one day, there are no more. It will all end, and that finality gives us all meaning. Because nothing sharpens the senses like a literal deadline. [A1] Happy birth-day—stopwatch  starts—and you're off! Your days are a library book on loan. Enjoy it, and mind the due date.  There are no extensions.

You can't have one without the other—that's the mortal compact, made at birth. Here's the deal, here's the trade: you get all of this, every bright and aching day of it, and one day it all ends.