Maya’s Travels

Dear Mai,

Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican Holiday for "Day of the Dead." Don't confuse that with a zombie movie like your Daddy did when I was young. It is a time to remember the people we have lost in our lives. It falls on November 2nd and because we are a tad bit away from Mexico here in the United States, especially Washington State, it is observed on many different days and many different ways.

Either way, it was a good time for us to remember Grandpa together. There was a festival here in Seattle a week before Halloween that we went to. Before we left, we had to find a good picture of Grandpa to take to the festival. These pictures are from March, 2000 when Grandpa, Grandma and I went to Mexico City to see the Basilica de Guadalupe. Your mother and I had only been dating for a few months otherwise she probably would have came with us. Silly Mommy. The boats we are on are located in the town of Xochimilco. You can see it here in the background that were boats jam packed with Mariachi bands filling the air witih music.

Of course as they passed by they would take requests. Grandpa probably requested "Volver, Volver" and Grandma probably teased him about it. Grandma used to always tease him about requesting the same song over and over. It's ok. He liked it that much. (now you know why I play the same songs over and over again) One of my best memories of your Grandpa was how he used to tease and play with Grandma. He used to always make her laugh. Heck, he always made everyone laugh. You can see he was teasing her in the pictures above. Then he was laughing because he cracked himself up too. I hope Mommy and I can give you a similar memory as we grow together.

Anyway, on to the festival! Time to costume up and dig into your roots Mai Tai!

So while it was neat to see this festival in Seattle, it wasn't really a "festival." It was cool seeing the young kids in the bands and dance although "staying in tune" wasn't their strong suit. Everytime the horns kicked in you smiled and smiled. Trumpet player maybe? Your Great, Great Grandpa Plasencio played all kinds of intruments.

It took us about 5 minutes to see all 3 booths they had setup. But, it was in the Seattle Center, so there were a couple of other things we could get into. I call this series Maya and her roots.

After a little play time and some lunch we did what we came to do. We visisted the main altar at the festival. The altars are places were you can leave pictures, tokens or whatever of our loved ones that have passed. Mommy snagged a few pictures of us visiting the altar and offering a picture of Grandpa.

It was a good day Mai. It still hurts because we all miss him so much but it was great bringing you there to help remember him. He was a great man Mai and by the time you are reading this you will realize that from all the stories that we will haved shared with you about him.

My goal at some point in your life is to retrace our steps of that Mexico City visit. We'll stay in a fancy hotel, eat great food, visit the Basilica, climb some pyramids. We'll visit Xochimilco, ride the boats and request "Volver, Volver" over and over again and through it all, we'll be talking about and remembering Grandpa.

Until then just take it easy learning to walk. Eat your vegatables and eat chocolate in moderation. But those are different stories...

Love,

Daddy