As a pagan, Halloween is one of the most holy days of the year as we believe it is the day when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is the thinnest and that we can communicate with those who have gone before. Our family spends time on Halloween remembering those who have gone before and paying tribute to the lessons we’ve learned and the courage that has been shown by our ancestors. As our children get older, I am always touched by the thoughtfulness and insight they share. We typically go around the family circle several times remembering family members and loved ones who have passed this year, family members and loved ones who have passed in years past, people who have inspired us, and lastly a reading of famous people who’ve died during the year.
Loved Ones who have passed this year
This year’s reading of the dead list was especially poignant as my father, who passed away last Thanksgiving was on everyone’s mind. I shared with the family the lessons I’d learned from my father about loving other people, being kind, and loving animals. Cat shared how her grandfather had inspired her love of animals and desire to work with critters. Sean shared how he had learned at his grandfather’s funeral how benevolent his grandfather had been to everyone and not just his family members. Sean said he was especially impressed by how many people his grandfather had touched in his life and how he kept in touch with people he worked with from 20 or more years ago. John made me cry when he talked about how my father had welcomed him into his family.
A few days before my father died, my grandmother passed away so my poor mother had to grieve for her mother and tend to my father during his last days. My grandmother was a difficult woman who made my mother’s life very hard growing up. Despite the grief and misery my grandmother had caused, my mother exemplified love and compassion as she took care of her in her later years. As I took a few moment’s to reflect upon my grandmother’s life, I found myself able to show her compassion and thank her for having giving birth to my mother. I acknowledged that she was a product of her upbringing and I felt the burden of anger and pain release as I realized that she could no longer hurt me and the best gift I could give myself and my mother was to let go of the anger and pain I’d been carrying around.
Other Loved Ones
After we’ve remembered our loved ones who have crossed over in the past year, we take a few minutes to remember the ones we have loved who died in years gone past. This year there were people in our hearts, but we focused on the pets we’d loved and lost like our very beloved dog Blake who died 15 years ago when I left him out all night and he got hit by a truck when he raced home in the morning. We remembered Sammy who died of seizures eight years ago. And we remembered our childhood pets who had graced our lives with love and laughter. It was funny as we were talking about our past pets, Luke got hyper and started being physco puppy as if he did not want us to talk about any critters but him. We told him gently that if we hadn’t had such wonderful dogs in days gone past, we would not have wanted to bring him into our lives.
People who have inspired us
We always remember people whose lives and or deaths have touched us in some way. Sometimes these are people who have died recently and other times that are people who died hundreds of years ago. Caitlin started off by remembering the witches who were burned at the stake, but instead of remembering them as victims, she praised them for choosing to live their lives to the beat of a different drummer. She praised them for their integrity in being healers and wisewomen and not conforming to societal norms. My loving daughter also remembered the heroes of Flight 93 for their courage in choosing to fight instead of allow the hijackers to kill other innocents. She remembered our night time visit to the Flight 93 memorial and the ghostly hug she received that made her feel everything would be all right.
John chose to remember all the victims of intolerance throughout the ages from the victims of the Crusades to the victims of the Holocaust to the victims of genocide in Darfur and Yugoslavia. He spoke eloquently about how we needed to do what we could to stop the senseless killing.
I remembered the “Righteous among the Nations” for their courage in doing what they could to protect and defend Jews during the Holocaust. I remembered those who chose to issue passports so Jews could escape, those who chose to hire them as workers to save their lives, and those who sheltered them. They did so knowing that if they were caught, it could mean their lives.
Sean’s tribute was to the victims of gang violence, to the little girls who lost their lives in the crossfire while they were sitting on their front porches, to children who were beaten to death coming home from school, and to the kids who got caught up in the gangs because it was either joint he gangs or die.
Listening to my eloquent children speak about those people who had touched their lives, gave me goosebumps as I realized they have grown up to be intelligent and thoughtful individuals who do recognize right from wrong and do have similar values to their father and I.
The Yearly Dead List
The last part of the evening is devoted to reading a list of notable people who have died during the year. I used to keep a running list all year, but the last few years I’ve just reviewed online lists of deaths right before Halloween to compile a list of those who we’ll remember. People who typically make our family Dead List include actors from movies or TV shows that have meant something to us, sports figures, World War II heroes, ordinary people who died violently, and others whose lives seem interesting or who touched us in some way. Compiling the list is always interesting as inevitably there is someone who died that we forgot or didn’t know about, for instance this year Majel Barrett (Star Trek actress and wife of Gene Rodenberry) passed away and we didn’t realize it until we compiled the dead list. The following was our dead list for 2009 (note this was compiled from Wikipedia):
Bill Finnegan, 80, American television and film producer (The Fabulous Baker Boys, Hawaii Five-O)
Andrew McKelvey, 74, American founder of Monster.com, pancreatic cancer. [32]
Edna Parker, 115, American supercentenarian, oldest validated living person. [48]
David M. Jones, 94, American Air Force officer, Doolittle Raider. [60]
Alan Gordon, 64, American songwriter (“Happy Together“). [80],
Betty James, 90, American businesswoman, co-founder of the Slinky company
Debby, 42, Soviet-born Canadian oldest living polar bear, third-oldest known bear
George Stephen Morrison, 89, American admiral, father of Jim Morrison. [112]
Adrian Kantrowitz, 90, American physician, performed the first pediatric heart transplant
John Odom, 26, American professional baseball player, accidental drug overdose. [201]
Michael Crichton, 66, American writer (Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain
Syd Lucas, 108, British World War I veteran. [210],
Cecil W. Stoughton, 88, American Presidential photographer (Kennedy, Johnson)
Bill Stall, 71, American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (Los Angeles Times), complications from pulmonary disease. [237]
Jimmy Carl Black, 70, American Cheyenne drummer and vocalist (The Mothers of Invention), lung cancer. [240]
Tiffany Sloan, 35, American model (Playboy), suicide by drug overdose. [248]
Richard Genelle, 47, American actor (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers: Zeo)
Bernie Hamilton, 80, American actor (Starsky and Hutch), cardiac arrest. [9]
Paul Hofmann, 96, Austrian writer, informant against the Nazis. [10]
Freddie Hubbard, 70, American jazz trumpeter, complications from a heart attack. [16]
Quentin C. Aanenson, 87, American fighter pilot, cancer. [22]
Sir Michael Levey, 81, British art historian, Director of the National Gallery (1973–1986). [26]
Wyvetter H. Younge, 78, American politician, member of the Illinois House of Representatives since 1975
Eartha Kitt, 81, American singer and actress (Batman), colon cancer. [55]
Ron Hornaday, Sr., 77, American NASCAR driver, cancer. [91]
Robert Mulligan, 83, American film director (To Kill a Mockingbird), heart disease. [104]
Matt Kofler, 49, American football player (Buffalo Bills, Indianapolis Colts). [114]
Majel Barrett, 76, American actress (Star Trek), widow of science fiction writer Gene Roddenberry
Peter Malam Brothers, 91, British Royal Air Force pilot, Battle of Britain ace. [118]
Pete Case, 67, American football player (New York Giants), after long illness. [119]
John Costelloe, 47, American actor (The Sopranos), suicide by gunshot. [120]
Nahla Hussain al-Shaly, 37, Iraqi women’s rights activist, shot and decapitated. [124]
W. Mark Felt, 95, American public official, Deputy Director of the FBI
Gregoire, 66, African-born primate, oldest known chimpanzee. [136]
Bettie Page, 85, American pin-up model and actress, complications from a heart attack. [194]
Sunny von Bülow, 76, American heiress, cardiopulmonary arrest. [240]
Beverly Garland, 82, American actress (My Three Sons), after long illness. [248]
Richard Topus, 84, American World War II messenger pigeon trainer and business executive, kidney failure. [253]
Oliver Selfridge, 82, British-born American computer scientist, pioneer of artificial intelligence
Lou Jacobi, 95, Canadian-born American actor (The Diary of Anne Frank). [15] ,
Shiloh Pepin, 10, American girl with rare sirenomelia condition, pneumonia. [16]
Soupy Sales, 83, American comedian. [29],
Joseph Wiseman, 91, Canadian actor (Dr. No). [65],
Jasper Howard, 20, American football player, stabbed. [68]
Leonard B. Keller, 62, American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient
Willard Varnell Oliver, 88, American Navajo code talker. [110],
Collin Wilcox, 74, American actress (To Kill a Mockingbird), brain cancer. [114]
Shaun Wylie, 96, British mathematician and World War II codebreaker. [252],
Summer Squall, 22, American thoroughbred stallion racehorse, 1990 Preakness Stakes winner
Lucy Vodden, 46, British inspiration for The Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“, lupus. [89]
Robert Searcy, 88, American member of the Tuskegee Airmen, colorectal cancer. [136]
Steve Romanik, 85, American football player (Chicago Bears), after long illness. [150]
Mary Travers, 72, American singer (Peter, Paul and Mary), leukemia. [152]
Michael Knox, 48, American co-founder of Park Place Productions, producer of John Madden Football
Patrick Swayze, 57, American actor (Dirty Dancing, Ghost)
Arnold Laven, 87, American film and television director (The Rifleman, The Big Valley)
Bill Sparkman, 51, American substitute teacher and census worker, hanged. [200]
Gertrude Baines, 115, American supercentenarian, world’s oldest person
Larry Gelbart, 81, American comedy writer (M*A*S*H) and blogger (The Huffington Post), cancer. [208]
Crystal Lee Jordan, 68, American union organizer, inspiration for Norma Rae
John Pattison, 92, New Zealand World War II pilot. [213],
Frank Batten, 82, American businessman, founder of The Weather Channel
Gertrude Noone, 110, American supercentenarian, world’s oldest military veteran. [224]
Annie Le, 24, American graduate student, homicide. [241]
John Stephens, 43, American football player (New England Patriots), NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year (1988)
Nancy Talbot, 89, American businesswoman, co-founder of Talbots retail stores
Sadie Corre, 91, British actress (The Rocky Horror Picture Show). [53],
Ellie Greenwich, 68, American songwriter (“Be My Baby“, “Chapel of Love“)
T. J. Turner, 46, American football player (Miami Dolphins), complications from a stroke. [77]
Jim Urbanek, 64, American football player (Miami Dolphins). [78] ,
Charles Bond, 94, American Air Force general, pilot with Flying Tigers
Ed Reimers, 96, American character actor (Star Trek, The Barefoot Executive). [141]
Louis Rosen, 91, American nuclear physicist (Manhattan Project), inventor of the atom smasher
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, 88, American activist, founder of the Special Olympics
Ted Kennedy, 77, American politician, Senator from Massachusetts (1962–2009)
Merlyn Mantle, 77, American author, widow of Mickey Mantle
Jimmy Bedford, 69, American distiller (Jack Daniel’s), heart attack. [224]
John Hughes, 59, American film director, screenwriter
Gidget, 15, American chihuahua, Taco Bell mascot
Dallas McKennon, 89, American voice actor (Gumby, Buzz Buzzard
Farrah Fawcett, 62, American actress (Charlie’s Angels), anal cancer. [39]
Michael Jackson, 50, American pop singer–songwriter, acute propofol intoxication. [42]
Ed McMahon, 86, American television host (Star Search) and announcer (The Tonight Show). [72],
Jerri Nielsen, 57, American physician, treated herself for breast cancer on Antarctica in 1999
Bert Bank, 94, American radio pioneer and politician, Bataan Death March survivor. [78]
Lorena Gale, 51, Canadian actress (Battlestar Galactica) and playwright, gastrointestinal cancer. [90]
Kenneth L. Reusser, 89, American Marine aviator, decorated veteran of World War II
Michael Roof, 32, American actor (xXx, Black Hawk Down
Beatrice Arthur, 86, American Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress (Maude, The Golden Girls
Alex Lees, 97, British planner of the Great Escape during World War II. [74],
Ray Nance, 94, American World War II veteran, survivor of D-Day.
Ken Anderson, 33, American football player (Chicago Bears), heart attack.
Millard Kaufman, 92, American screenwriter (Bad Day at Black Rock), co-creator of Mr. Magoo
Jimmy Boyd, 70, American actor and singer (“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus“), cancer.
Billy Werber, 100, American baseball player, last living teammate of Babe Ruth
Bob May, 69, American actor (Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel)
Ricardo Montalbán, 88, Mexican-born American actor (Fantasy Island, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
Elżbieta Zawacka, 99, Polish World War II freedom fighter.
Cairn by Cairn 