Día de los Muertos

The local cemetery in the lower valley of El Paso was only a couple of blocks away from our home, and when I was little, I was scared of it. In retrospect, it wasn’t scary at all. It is just old and quiet, and most of the plots are simple, marked with small stone barriers or wooden crosses. There are no trees or grass. It’s just dirt.

I remember the day my grandma Jesusita held my hand and took me to the graveyard. She was carrying beautiful flowers from her garden, and we walked around the cemetery until she found her angelitos (little angels)—her two sons—who passed away within a month of each other. Jesús Manuel died before he was three years old, and Francisco died before he was one year old.