So I want to ask you this: What if a tradition centered around death can actually teach us about feeling closer to those we love? And I'm talking about DĂa de Muertos, also known as Day of the Dead. So in today's episode, I want to talk about the sacred traditions, how we can actually learn from DĂa de Muertos to feel connected with our loved ones in our own life and in our own way, and how it also directly correlates to research.
So welcome to another episode of the Growth After Loss podcast. I'm Dr. Mari Marquez, and first I want to start off by talking about the name, DĂa de Muertos, because you may also hear people refer to it as DĂa de los Muertos, also known as Day of the Dead. but in Mexico, it is proper and grammatically correct to say DĂa de Muertos.
So just a little fun fact for you on that. And while November 2nd is, an important day of remembrance, observances extend actually across several days for DĂa de Muertos, and this depends both on community and family tradition as well. and I want to talk about how if you're thinking about DĂa de Muertos as being something dark
or frightening because it involves death or sugar skulls, I just want to clear that up that there's so much more to the DĂa de Muertos than just death. DĂa de Muertos, it's about a time when family comes together to remember and honor the lives, so the life of their loved ones who have physically died.
And you can see that families come together and prepare an ofrenda, or an altar, and families put photos of their loved ones, um, objects that were important to their loved ones. Uh, you might also see people cooking, the favorite foods of their loved ones. And one movie that you can actually see, a little bit of more about this is in Coco.
It's one of my favorite movies. but in Mexican traditions, they believe that their loved ones come back, during this time, not in physical form, but their souls.
for me, I want to talk about that it is more than just, you know, something DĂa de Muertos, it's not only represented in a movie for me, but in real life, and it takes me back to my childhood when I used to go with my mother to Mexico to put flowers, at my grandparents' graves. And I remember when we would go to the cemetery, it was not sad, but more so it was filled with food and music and flowers and vendors, and there was so much life around us, even though that is the resting place of, those we love.
So there was so much aliveness, and that's something that has been with me since I was y- a young child, and it never left me. It never left me. So when I would go with my mom, I would enjoy going and celebrating, Dia De Muertos, because again, it was not only about The death itself, it was about remembering the life of our loved ones and telling stories about them and what they liked.
and I think that is such a beautiful thing to have in our lives even when our loved ones have, passed on. But, this tradition means so much to somebody, like my mother who was born and raised, in Mexico, that now at 79 years of age, she's still going to Mexico and leaves flowers for my grandparents.
So this day goes beyond just a day of remembrance. It's a way to realize that these relationships, even years after years have passed since their physical death, they are still important in our lives. And, I'll come back to that in a moment because there is connection here with research and what I want to share with you on that.
first, one of the things that has always caught my attention about Dia De Muertos are the colors. They're so vibrant, and there's so much decorations, and again, it's just very lively. you see the decorated sugar skulls If you've ever been to a Dia De Muertos celebrations, there's just so much to look at and so much to, just honor and appreciate its own unique beauty.
I think one of the biggest things that we can see with Dia De Muertos is that there is more than just physical death. for example, in Mexican tradition, Mictlan is, associated to the underworld, that after, a loved one had passed, that they travel through these nine levels or their souls, pass through these nine levels. And we can tie it back to what we think about Catholicism. If you are Catholic, you believe in purgatory and you believe in heaven, and as my daughter calls it, the bad place.
Even though these beliefs are different from one another, they also, again, share that similarity of that there's more than just this physical life. now I just want to say that we can spend like a whole episode on that, but I want to bring it back to this, because beyond the marigolds, beyond the decorations, beyond, the festivities alone,
I think an important question to ask is what can DĂa de Muertos teach us about remembering? And for me, it brings me back to those visits with my mother. it's a place of connection. It is a place, again, of remembrance about family and care, and remembering that no matter how much time has passed, that we still love our loved ones, and they're important to us in our daily lives, and that we can still have some sort of connection with them just in a different form.
And that brings me to continuing bonds. Now, continuing bonds is a pillar of my framework, within growth after a loss. And in my research and across multiple research, continuing bonds has shown to be helpful in supportive ways, as our relationship has changed with our deceased loved one, from physical to non-physical.
And Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman, and Steven Nickman, helped bring this approach to prominence, through their 1996 book, called Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. And their work actually did something, pretty amazing, and that was change the belief that extended all the way from Freud that we had to disconnect this relationship, this emotional relationship with our loved one.
What continuing bonds did is that it challenged that ideology. And in fact, it has been found helpful that learning to live with this emotional connection, with our loved ones, even though it has changed, it still can be supportive in our lives. So in simple terms, continuing bonds, it means that our relationship, with someone who has passed still remains.
Um, this is not pretending that, you know, they are still alive, but more so that this relationship, this love, this form of how we express that love has changed. the relationship has changed. We may continue that connection through memories, stories that we tell about them, the values that we, now live out in our own lives, and the things that we do every day to remember them.
My mother taking flowers to her parents, even though many years have passed, I mean, it has been over 50 years that my mom has lost her parents, that is a way of her remembering them. Remembering this day in Dia de Muertos, and actually traveling to Mexico, and, leaving those flowers for her, it's a form of connection.
It's a form of love. It's a form of remembrance. And for you, it might be cooking your loved one's meal when you want to remember them, or telling a story about them. I know for me, I share a lot of stories with my daughter about her papa, as she was only 13 months old when he died. I want to make this clear that this is not to pretend that our loved ones haven't died. but this is about recognizing that they still have a place in our lives, in our hearts, in our minds, in the values that we carry in our daily interactions. And I don't want to minimize how difficult this can be to engage in continuing bonds, to engage in talking about our loved ones or remembering them, because it's something that can be very heavy and very difficult depending where you are, in your own journey of loss.
But sometimes remembering them feels comforting, and sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it does both. And these connections, you know, even though they can be comforting, they may also feel, again, very heavy for some. So everyone's experience will be different, and at the end of the day, you have to do what's right for you.
If you're not there to talk about them, if you're not there to remember them, that's perfectly fine, too. You have to respect your own journey and your own, experience. I do want to say this. I think it's important, to think about continuing bonds and what that may look like for you in the future if that's something that you would like to do.
Think about what would remembering my loved one look like in a way that feels right for me? not what everyone else, thinks that you should do, but what is meaningful to you.
And this is a really great question to ponder on and to think, because you'll find authenticity what might work for you. And as part of grieving and learning to live life with our loved ones, it's such an important part of respecting our individuality, our experiences, our culture, where we come from, because this will vary from culture to culture, from family to family, even from person to person.
Again, for my mother, it was taking flowers to my grandparents even, you know, 50 years later. For you, it may be entirely different, if that, even if you want to go ahead and do something like this.
But one of the things that I love about Dia de Muertos that I've learned is that I think what I keep coming back to is that we remember someone not only because they died, but because they also lived. Their stories, their love, their teachings, their values, what they injected in our lives, in our relationships matters.
It still matters even though they're not physically here.
So remember that, this might not be for everyone. It might not. But if you do want to remember your loved one, there are so many ways that you can do this, that's respects, again, your experience and your individuality, your background, and what feels supportive to you. So DĂa de Muertos, for me, we remember those not only who have died, but, we remember their life, their spirit, their soul.
and for many of us, it's the love that is still very present with us in our hearts, um, even after their physical body has died.
So thank you again so much for joining me today on another episode of the Growth After Loss podcast. If you found this episode helpful, please go ahead and share it with a friend, a loved one, or a coworker. And again, it is my honor to be here today with you and talking about DĂa de Muertos, talking about continuing bonds.
I hope you take care and do what's right for you in your own journey that you find supportive. Thank you, and take care.
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