Halloween?

Things are starting to pop up about Halloween now, costumes and treats in stores, invitations to events. I have always loved Halloween. I love dressing up in a costume, never anything scary but something funny or retro and amusing. Friends of ours always really go to town for Halloween, their whole block does actually, with gravestones on the front lawn and cobwebs everywhere and animated zombie mannequin things. Tonnes of kids come to their neighbourhood because it is always the most in the spirit and we always go too. But I think Halloween may now be lost to me forever. I don't see fun and frivolity when I see something like this:

I see a dead baby, my dead baby and I remember holding her lifeless body. I remember her the rattling last breaths, I remember her blue lips and crepey skin. I remember wrapping her up and putting her in the coffin we made. I remember being given her ashes. I feel the ache of grief and emptiness of loss and I want to scoop up this little cake skeleton and hold her tightly to my chest.

Of course the roots of this holiday are more meaningful than an excuse to dress up and depending on your age binge on candy or become your trampy alter ego, with it's connections to Samhain and All Saints Day etc. Maybe I need to look to making the day more meaningful and put aside what I can no longer do, at least until my son is old enough to want to celebrate. Really this is just one more thing that signifies how I am not the same person I was and I never will be.