{"id":34514,"date":"2021-10-30T00:01:49","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T07:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=34514"},"modified":"2026-06-06T11:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:50:11","slug":"a-day-for-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-day-for-the-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween &#8212; A Day for the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_34527\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34527\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/2021\/10\/30\/a-day-for-the-dead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2021\/10\/30\/a-day-for-the-dead\/ noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34527 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_5408-resized.webp\" alt=\"Halloween-a-day-for-the-dead with scary spiders\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34527\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Halloween: a day for the dead &#8212; and the scary stuff. <em>Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>What is Halloween?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A day to buy enough Hershey bars and Kit Kats to make sure there&#8217;s some left over for you after the ghosts and goblins have gone home to bed?<\/li>\n<li>A day to dress up as Lady Gaga?<\/li>\n<li>As Nancy Pelosi?<\/li>\n<li>A day to look death square in the face with scary stuff like spiders, skeletons and spooky jack-o-lanterns?<\/li>\n<li>Or is it a day for the dead? A day to remember the saintly and no-so-saintly folks who have gone before? In my particular corner of Christianity (the Episcopal Church), October 31 is All Hallows Eve.\u00a0 November 1 is All Hallows Day &#8212; aka All Saints Day. All Saints Day honors actual saints. The next day, November 2 is <a href=\"https:\/\/trinitywallstreet.org\/stories-news\/all-saints-all-souls-and-faithful-departed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">All Souls&#8217; Day.<\/a>\u00a0It honors the rest of us.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In Mexico and elsewhere, D\u00eda de Muertos is celebrated with food and visits to cemeteries and the graves of the departed. Stories &#8212; especially the funny ones &#8212; are told about those who aren&#8217;t around any more to get the story straight.<\/p>\n<p>And, so, in the spirit of D\u00eda de Muertos, I&#8217;m making this Halloween a day for the dead. I&#8217;m sharing a Jon story or two here, including one that was told at the cemetery after Jon&#8217;s interment in September.<\/p>\n<p>Some are funny. Some are &#8212; dead &#8212; serious.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Jon&amp;apos;s Nephew Tells All\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hYUs4KP978E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jon&#8217;s nephew by marriage, Derek Falconer, tells a true-life Jon story from Derek&#8217;s childhood. <em>Videos by Matthew Yarbrough<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>A year ago, on Halloween, a mischievous Jon sent magical candy through cyberspace to his faraway granddaughters. <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/tuxRI8QuVBU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">His daughter-in-law tells the story.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>More Jon stories at: <a href=\"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/2014\/02\/27\/for-wetter-or-drier-im-married-to-california\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;For Wetter, for Drier, I&#8217;m Married to California.&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0 And, <a href=\"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/2015\/10\/15\/the-day-our-son-didnt-drown-family-stories\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;The Day Our Son Didn&#8217;t Drown.&#8221;<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/2021\/10\/30\/a-day-for-the-dead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2021\/10\/30\/a-day-for-the-dead\/ noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-32127 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/IMG_5751-resized.jpg\" alt=\"Halloween-a-day-for-the-dead scary-mask\" width=\"1200\" height=\"674\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the spirit of D\u00eda de Muertos, I&#8217;m making this Halloween a day for the dead: I&#8217;m publishing a story or two told about Jon at his interment.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/2021\/10\/30\/a-day-for-the-dead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14],"tags":[187,2523,2524,34,191,618,29,82,2419],"class_list":["post-34514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","category-widowed","tag-death","tag-derek-falconer","tag-dia-de-muertos","tag-dont-miss","tag-grief","tag-halloween","tag-jon","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34514"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49413,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34514\/revisions\/49413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}