As the van rolls down the winding street, it passes a torso climbing from the gutter.
The torso is topped with a head, its face painted white with exaggerated clown lips and topped with a shock of red hair. It’s holding a red balloon in an outstretched arm.
In the adjacent driveway, a skeleton straddles a motorcycle.
As I head to the library, the grocery store, the Post Office, a row of skeletons lines, our neighbor’s front yard across the street from the elementary school.
As I drive around town, there are bloody severed limbs on porches. There are partially decomposed bodies dangling from trees.
There are bloody mummies. There are blood-splattered tools.
It’s gruesome. Horrible.
Triggering.
In the 11 years that my son was alive, he endured six open-heart surgeries. I’ve seen enough bloody bandages, exposed bone, pools of blood, and thick black stitches holding together skin.
I’ve seen blood-splattered floors. Blood on the machines designed to hold the bloody fluid draining from tubes, leaving my son’s body.
I see these things when I close my eyes.
When I’m trying to fall asleep at night.
When I have another nightmare.
And now they are everywhere during the day when my eyes are open.
When did blood and death and gore become mainstream entertainment gleefully displayed in front yards?
I don’t know how to avoid it because it’s everywhere.
I hate this time of year.
I hate this holiday.
For a society that tends to avoid talking about death and dying and grief, we sure love to slap it around for fun at the end of October.
Should I put my son’s ashes on display in the front yard? Should I scatter his collection of lost childhood teeth on our sidewalk?
Or maybe put them in a small bowl next to our mailbox?
Should I sprinkle his hair — the clippings I snipped after he died — on the grass? Should I hang his t-shirts on a clothesline across the front porch?
I suspect that would be in poor taste.
Because actual death is offensive.
In the meantime, if you pass the middle school in my town, you’ll see a yard with a large decorative — if that’s what you call it — tombstone at the end of their driveway.
In large letters across the front, it says, “RIP Max.”
Max is the name of the child who lives in that house. He is alive.
Is it fun to imagine that your child has died? Even when you know a family whose son has died?
When you’ve been to their house and talked about grief?
Should I put a tombstone in my front yard with Riley’s name on it?
Would it still be fun and festive?
I miss when Halloween was about pumpkins and kids dressed as firefighters or dinosaurs or cows and bunnies or Mario and Luigi.
And the gore was restricted to rentals from the local video store.
Riley and Carter
I used to kinda enjoy those things myself before 2014. Never thought of it actually emotionally hurting anyone. But my Beautiful 32 year old Son passed in 2014 and now I also can’t bear to see these things. I have never said it to anyone, did not think there was anyone else out there who it offended and hurt like myself. But it does, deeply. There is nothing funny or thrilling about it. It HAS to hurt so many people. If my Son did not cross over, I probably would never have thought of it this way, but he did, and I do. I can’t imagine how I did not see it before, or we as a society have not opened our eyes to the pain those particular things must bring on to so many. I know it will not change though. As for your neighbor, there is no excuse for that, knowing what you have been through. I am so very Sorry.
Thank you!!! I hate this holiday and your article is the first one that I have ever read that spelled “it” out. I sit beside you. Every since my 13 year old Son flew away…it’s a season I truly dread. I am thankful you wrote about it.
Personally, the forth of July sucks for me. So does Christmas and Thanksgiving. Halloween was my daughters favorite holiday and for her, the scarier the better. I feel your pain, I understand it. But I know my daughter wouldn’t want me to feel less festive on holidays no matter what holiday it is. I go with the flow and realize none of it is an attack on my feelings and none if it is an attack on her. Sometimes people just don’t think when they do the things they do, especially keeping us in mind when we live close by. There is only one person at fault for my daughters death, so I can’t point fingers and get mad at people for living life how they want and that includes how they decorate or express themselves for holidays. People are just living, they aren’t setting out each day to be insensitive to you. It’s all part of our moving forward and having to live with our tragedies. I feel just awful that this holiday is hurting you all like this. All we can do is keep moving forward and pray we get past each event that truly gives us pain. Maybe schedule a vacation to the beach or out of the country or on a cruise during this time to get you over the hump. Lean on people close to you and tell them how you feel. My heart goes out to all parents of lost children, all year every year. May the souls of our beautiful children remind us they are always with us. I will live the rest of my life to honor my child and live each day as I know she wants me too. Blessings to all that live with grief and missing their loved ones, especially their child.
❤
I totally understand. Perfect article. But those who can’t even imagine, will not understand, even for a second. The only thing I decorate with since my son died is cutesy fall, pumpkin things. Can’t do the skeketons, graves etc for all the same reasons..