weisserwatercolours

It is somehow emotionally appropriate that the end of October goes out with a bang: neighbours blowing off underperforming fireworks and shouting candy-crazed kids, their flashlights poking about wildly, take the night by force. Then the whole business collapses from exhaustion in order for the soundlessly-powerful, whispered entrance of that most ancient day of days–All Souls.

In The Philippines, where my husband was born, school is cancelled, work is paused, with families preparing food and going to the cemetery to eat and share beside the graves of those who have gone on before. It is what we here would call a superstitious nation, yet in reality just a place left on this planet where there is still room for honouring mystery–revering that which none can fully explain, finding ways to cherish that which links present souls with those of the ever-present departed. Prayers are made. And in the hush, the divine takes over.

Here in Canada, All Souls (All Saints falls on November 1st commemorating martyrs of the Faith, with All Souls the day after) is but a quaint throwback to another era, something found in books. Yet we remain a lonely country, so convinced that individuality is king, we’re instagramed personalities, famous to a few, dependent on likes, feeling a bit needy, less-than, craving attention.

November is that month of mystery where its biggest holiday is not a holiday at all, but rather an observance: minutes of silence, poppies pinned on overcoats, wreaths placed on memorials, a single bugle sending into the flurried air that mournful note for those of us left to remember those of us departed.

May your own All Souls be one of letting in that feeling of absence which is yet not an absence, but merely the silence of those who are no longer here, whose memory is anything but absent, whose laughter can–when we allow it room–yet still be heard in our heart of hearts. It is a day for pulling out photo albums, fingering over the images of the ones who take our individuality and give it the fullness of community, of family, of love, of that which we sometimes feel we lack.