I have been writing this blog on Build Altars for exactly a year now. My first one last year was for Days of the Dead, coming up soon on November 1 and 2. As I was reflecting on how I could repeat talking about the classic Mexican celebration of Dias de los Muertos, I received a surprise email from my dad. In it, he attached photos that nobody in our family had ever seen before. They were photos of his father, my grandfather, which he had received from a half-brother he had never met until recently. The concept of grandfather had always been a big mystery to me. My maternal grandfather died when my mother was a child. My paternal grandfather, suddenly made real in these photos, had essentially been out of the picture in my father’s life since he was a little boy, for reasons that have come to light in more recent years since the death of my grandmother. This grandfather also passed away a number of years ago without me ever meeting him. As light has been shed onto old mysteries, my father has been more open to checking into his father’s life and who he was, and he just recently met this half-brother for the first time. I discovered that I have 4 aunts and uncles I never knew, from my grandfather’s second marriage, in some place like Barstow, California, thereabouts.
But most interesting for me is that my grandfather has a face now. Looking at these old black and white photos, I now know what he looks like, after wondering for a lifetime, and he looks exactly like my dad. And since I look a lot like my dad, I can see what features of my grandfather’s passed onto my own face. Perhaps even more shocking to me was to see photos of my grandmother, back when they were a seemingly happy little family in 1940, when my dad was a little 2 year old in overalls, before my grandfather was sent off to war in the Pacific. My grandmother is holding my dad in her arms, and she also looks exactly like me, as if the photo were just a black and white photo of me in a dress holding Marco. My grandmother passed away when I was 10 years old, and I recall her as a saggy wrinkly droopy sort of woman who wore cat-eye glasses and mumu-style dresses in gauche colors. She also smoked non-stop, I remember, and in one photo she has a cigarette dangling in her hand. But in 1940, her nose looked like mine, her smile, her way of holding her body, her long arms. I seem to have gotten the sharpness in my face from my grandfather, the cheekbones and chin, a certain look in my eyes. Studying the photos, and I really can’t tear myself away from them, brings home the fact I’ve long ignored or forgotten about that I come from someone. I have people. I have lineage. I have ancestors. I did not just pop out a one-time individual with no past or future. I am intrinsically tied to family, whether I want it or not.
My favorite photo is dated Sept. 1938, shortly after my dad was born. I have no idea where the photo was taken, but I imagine somewhere in Nevada, as my dad was born in Beatty, in Death Valley. There is a crispness and a clarity to the image that only real black and white film can capture. Standing there on a dirt street with old clapboard storefronts are my grandfather, my great-grandmother, and my great-great-grandmother, and the baby in her arms is my father. There is a shadow visible next to them of my grandmother, who is snapping the photo. I think, oh my, I have a great-grandmother and a great-great-grandmother?? I never even thought about them, since my grandfather was an unknown. But there they are, two very nice and sweet-looking ladies, gazing warmly at my father. And they have names, they have identities, they were real people once upon a time. Again, I am stunned into acknowledging that I have ancestors.
So this year Days of the Dead will be a little different for me. This year I will be celebrating my ancestors. This year I will be looking back through my lineage and honoring those from whom I came, especially those women, those grandmothers, who if they had known me would have looked lovingly down at me in their arms.
As the veil between the worlds draws thin this year and you celebrate the spirits returning for their annual visit, who will you honor? Where did you come from? Do you know your ancestors?
Image #1: Photo, My Grandfather, Great-Grandmother, Great-Great-Grandmother with my Father in Arms, 1938, Nevada.
Image #2: Photo, My Grandmother, Father, & Grandfather, 1940, Nevada.
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