Happy Birthday

These words can bring joy, connection and also sadness, loss and grief.

Birthdays are just that days of our birth, and we annualise them to celebrate how far we have come, what we have experienced in that year.

However, when you have lost someone birthdays can be dismissed as they can carry the most pain- the loss of what could have been- and we focus on the anniversary day of death.

The Mexicans do death well. In the matter of remembrance, focus and recollections, memory. Their Dia de los Muertos, (Day of the dead), is not Halloween it’s more poignant, more loving, more connected, the life-affirming joy it’s the celebration of life and the death of loved ones.

The festival focuses on the dead as living, still members of the community, kept alive in memory and spirit—and during Día de los Muertos, each persons spirit is temporarily returned to Earth.

There are fun, joy and poem readings called “Calavera” (meaning skull) short, humorous poems, think Spike Milligan style or Pam Ayres often sarcastic tombstone epitaph reflections.

There is a lot more to this celebration (2 days food, and community, family and more this is just a snippet of a beautiful indigenous celebration that teaches us cultural differences)

 I like this gentle concept of staying connected to our lost ones, the ones we miss, love and stay in our lives just in a different way. And also like the Mexican Three Deaths Philosophy –

• Your first Death is your exhalation of life, stop breathing and die.

• Your second death is your internment to Mother Earth.

• Your Third Death is when your name is said for the LAST time

Dia de Los Muertos is ensuring that the names of our loved ones never take the final death and we keep their names alive.

Pete, Happy Birthday. We will never not say your name. You remain with us, as us, alongside us. In celebration of a lost life, a life that co-created two more. To a life that would have been 54 years old yet left us 25 years ago. We wish you Happy Birthday, and we celebrate the day you joined the world in 1966. We celebrate the 28 years, the seven years I had you in my life, the four years for Betty and the joyous short time months you had with Georgie. We celebrate we had you in our lives and that it was enough. We celebrate you, what you gave, your smile, your fun, the time we had, your ridiculousness, your bad singing, your David Bowie obsession, your aspirations. We celebrate our daughters and the stories we got the chance to make with them.  Pete, we wish you Happy Birthday and focus today is on your life. Your story and forever saying your name.

A  Calavera For Pete

care and courtesy of Spike Milligan

Help, help, ' said a man. 'I'm drowning.' 

'Hang on, ' said a man from the shore. 

'Help, help, ' said the man. 'I'm not clowning.' 

'Yes, I know, I heard you before. 

Be patient dear man who is drowning, 

You, see I've got a disease. 

I'm waiting for a Doctor J. Browning. 

So do be patient please.' 

'How long, ' said the man who was drowning. 'Will it take for the Doc to arrive? ' 

'Not very long, ' said the man with the disease. 'Till then try staying alive.' 

'Very well, ' said the man who was drowning. 'I'll try and stay afloat. 

By reciting the poems of Browning 

And other things he wrote.' 

'Help, help, ' said the man with the disease, 'I suddenly feel quite ill.' 

'Keep calm.' said the man who was drowning, ' Breathe deeply and lie quite still.' 

'Oh dear, ' said the man with the awful disease. 'I think I'm going to die.' 

'Farewell, ' said the man who was drowning. 

Said the man with the disease, 'goodbye.' 

So the man who was drowning, drownded 

And the man with the disease past away. 

But apart from that, 

And a fire in my flat, 

It's been a very nice day.

by Spike Milligan

So on this day of celebrating life, your life Happy 54 years of you.

#suicideprevention #suicideawareness #mentalhealthawareness #talk #listen #livelovelife #birthday #spikemilligan #dayofthedead #DiadelosMuertos