halloweens past

Block Island, 2017

 Typically, I have spent Halloween on Block Island, on the most memorable of which we tried to capture a ghostly horse in the fog. But this morning I woke up thinking about a Halloween 56 years ago, when my father told his wife and his children that he was leaving. My mother, needless to say, was a mess.
   So I was the one who rallied the troops for trick or treating. Chris, as I recollect, was a tree, wrapped in brown paper bags and holding a branch in each hand. It was not easy to walk nor to carry a candy bag. Ben was the standard sheet ghost where the eye holes kept slipping sideways and he stumbled and couldn't see. Erin, who was five, was a gypsy, I think, though my memory is unclear. I have no recollection of my own costume, if any.
   Last year the four of us, both parents recently dead, gathered in New Orleans for a cousin's wedding—and Halloween and the Day of the Dead. I didn't think of that long ago Halloween then.

New Orleans, 2018

New Orleans, 2018