“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain
November 2nd is Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Nicaragua, when the cemeteries fill with family members decorating, cleaning, and painting the crypts of their loved ones. It’s a time to celebrate the dearly departed. Theresa and I walked to the Moyogalpa cemetery early this morning with flowers for our dead friends. We passed people with hoes, buckets of paint, brooms, and flowers…lots and lots of flowers.
The grave sites are picked clean of all weeds and the soft volcanic soil is raked. Then, they wash the crypts and apply a new coat of paint. Finally, family members and friends place beautiful flowers, little handmade skeletons, candy, and other bling-bling on the graves.
We walked along the paths admiring the variety of decorations, the arrangement of flowers, and the beautifully tiled and painted crypts. Even the poorest families, who couldn’t afford to make a crypt, lovingly placed flowers over the hills of dirt protecting their loved ones.
Theresa and I were looking for Jerry’s grave, the only foreigner buried in the Moyogalpa cemetery. We hadn’t been back to visit the cemetery since Jerry’s burial, so we couldn’t remember the exact location. Roaming workers directed us to the spot under the large Jicote tree shading his beautifully tiled crypt.
After a little chat with Jerry, and placing some flowers on his grave, we searched for Jose’s grave. “Excuse me,” I asked, but can you help us find Jose’s grave?” “He died 3 years ago. He was 24 years old and he worked at our house.” Friendly and helpful Nicaraguans helped us search for Jose, but there were hundreds of Jose’s in the cemetery and we didn’t know his last name. Some said he is buried in this dirt covered grave, but we didn’t know for sure. I placed my flowers beside the grave, and told Jose how much I missed him.
It was a lovely dia de muerte. R.I.P Jerry and Jose.
I always have found that central and south America really have beautiful cemeteries. They take a lot of pride in their departed ones.
That was very sweet of you Deb visiting the dead, I went yesterday November 2nd to the mass of the dead and offered prayers for my loved ones, the soldiers in the civil war both in Nicaragua and The USA, and all the departed. Jerry and Jose were very happy with your presence 🙂 . We often look at death with sadness because we don’t physically have our loved ones next to Us, but death is the beginning of a better life filled with peace and love, it is the greatest journey we will ever make when we go meet our creator. Laus Deus 🙂