She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to understand. She’d lost her husband, & her son.
Two gems gone in one year. How would she make it? She remembered her hijo’s joyful peals of giggles as he ran through the street, her husband’s gentle smile & deep, hearty laugh.
Lost in reverie, she wandered in the dark, following the candles, eventually finding herself in front of her son’s tomb. As she bent down to its level, she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. She bowed her head, letting them slide down her cheek.
A memory flooded back, to his first Día de los Muertos:
“Mamá, what are those?” he asked of the dancing skeletons in the plaza. “They’re calacas famosas,” she explained.
He always wanted to be a calaca famosa, dancing on the plaza.
She heard a shout of laughter. Looking up through her tears, she couldn’t help but smile.
Out on the deserted plaza, she saw a gust of joyfully kick up leaves in a dance.
“¡Mamá, míreme! ¡Soy una calaca famosa!” his voice cried in childish delight.