October is here! So begins the parade of my favorite things! I hope you swoon for all things pumpkin, skeleton, witch, and Day of the Dead, because I’ll likely be posting a lot, A LOT, of those! Not that I don’t the other 11 months, but October is their time to shine!

Last week, there was a death in my family. Though I hadn’t seen my Aunt Patty since I was a child, I grieve for her family. She was a person who lived life well. She had been a volunteer at the Senior Center for 13 years and counting, she loved travel and her family, and she was as vibrant inside as on the outside. There is a lot of pain because she was tragically killed in a car wreck that involved an impaired driver. I think everyone did a great job remembering that she would never want anyone to be sad in her name. Between the church, the cemetery, and the reception, I spent five hours with my family on Friday. I could have easily spent more time catching up with them. Her name has only opened doors.

Aunt Patty & The Red Hat Society

A few weeks ago, I had been living with my ancestors from old black and white photos who I had never met. I had been achingly curious about these characters and their lives. They were dreamlike figures from another era who had moved into my psyche while I put together the Family Tree Album. I took the album with me to the funeral reception. One of the amazing women who had done quite a bit of the research on Ancestry.com was there. I felt like I was meeting one of my heroes. Yes, Sharon is my hero for finding pictures of my family that would otherwise never have come into my hands, making information available about my history that I otherwise would have never known, and revealing something about me to myself that had been buried. Sometimes at funerals there is an overwhelming amount of people that you just do not know. Once the album was opened, it was a little beacon that drew everyone together. Suddenly I was meeting people who were related to the ancestors I had been spending time with in the book. Now I was meeting their children and children’s children. Suddenly the fantasies began to have a little more weight. Next year, there is supposed to be a family reunion. I look forward to it. 

Fall is always a bit of a surreal time for me, and this year is not proving to be any different. So welcome to a new month! The final month of the Witch’s Year!