dia de los muertos.

My grandfather bought me my first guitar when I was still in elementary school.  I prayed for that guitar for weeks, searching every corner of our house trying to find it until I came up empty handed and devastated, sure I was going to be faced with socks on my birthday.  It turns out my grandfather and dad knew me well, and were much better at hiding presents than my mom. The next time he visited, he picked up my new guitar and began strumming the chords to a song I loved as a kid, a song we used to sing on my parents' front porch, an old folk tale about a frog who wanted to marry a mouse. 

My grandfather passed away a few years later after a brief illness, but I still see him sitting on our front porch, strumming his favorite song until his four year old granddaughter ran up wanting to sing about a frog. Often though, when I think about him I feel sad and lonely at all the things I feel he's missed. That guitar has moved with me through the years and now sits in my living room in LA.  Like the guitar, that old folk tale has been there through all the times I wanted to look over and see my grandfather.   I've caught myself humming the tune through college exams, navigating my way through a new country, holidays, birthdays and even standing in line at the market.  It's been years since I've heard him sing, but I can still hear his voice like I was sitting on our front porch yesterday.

So today, in honor of dias de los muertos, I will celebrate the memories without sadness, singing a silly little song that has made me realize even though our time was cut short, he's always been with me.