Don’t Forget About The Tacos

Grief can churn our insides. Losing our beloved pets, our favorite humans, or our long-chased dreams, anticipated or sudden. Yet, we’re often encouraged to focus on the positive, to express gratitude for what we had while it was in our embrace.  To lean into all the good feels the experience gifted us.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a sad post.  In fact, it ends with delicious tacos.

This week marks 7 years since my stepdad passed.  Ted died on tax day, but his life was celebrated May 5th, Cinco de Mayo – fitting for a man who was half Mexican, half Basque, and always ready for a party.

We buried him in a brand new Hawaiian shirt, his typical “classy but fun” style. My mother had bought it on a whim for him just a few unsuspecting weeks before he died, planning that he’d wear it on one of their Saturday nights out.

That holiday weekend, we mourned his death and celebrated his life, and I found it hard to balance the two, death and life, grief and joy.

My three-legged dog, however, demonstrates this balance perfectly, celebrating unleashed joy in the presence of cold, stiff death, but in her own grisly way.

You see, Roo has a habit of discovering carcasses.  Last summer, on a nighttime off-leash run, she returned to my whistle jingle-jangling the bones of possum from her teeth, fur still clumped to femurs and phalanges.

She hoarded her treasure under the house for a night, then proudly displayed it on my couch one sunny morning while I made my coffee.

And last night, during one of our usual after-hours romps in the grass behind my house, she found another carcass.

There is a quiet understanding of Roo’s boundaries in the grass behind my house.  This unmarked space stretches between two massive tree trunks, their branches weaving a tapestry of leaves and twigs into the night sky where the stars twinkle through, the moon arching its way over the darkened Earth.

In this space, Roo can run as fast as her speedy, skinny legs can carry her . . . zooming through the grass, towards the woods, turning nimbly and speeding back.

It’s a safe, beautiful time of night.  And I know where Roo is because I can hear the furious night birds squawking as Roo bolts towards them. She would never harm these night birds, the chicken-sized wildlife that walk the ground, pecking at bugs, but boy, does Roo love the chase.

And, she loves the carcasses.

When Roo has run off, and I hear a night bird screech in the distance, I know where her agile puppy legs have raced her to.  But when the silence lasts just a little too long, I know she’s discovered something dreadful.

This last night, noticing her delayed return across the dark grass, my instincts were correct.  She bounded towards me with what I hoped was a chunk of newly planted grass dangling from her mouth, an unearthed clump that she joyously flung about.

I couldn’t see it in the moonlight, but the way she gripped it in her toothy jaws and gleefully darted away from me was a sure sign she shouldn’t be playing with it.

I refrain from using my flashlight as much as possible, so beautiful is the night sky here in Nicaragua.  But I needed to know.   Was Roo sporting a clump of grass in her teeth, or a decaying creature?

My light revealed a decaying creature.

This one still had a jaw, a spine, and at least one hind leg.  I didn’t study it long enough to see about the tail, but I spotted the quills.  And quills on a porcupine, alive or dead, will still pierce a dog’s face.

But Roo was jubilant.  This poor, not-too-long dead porcupine, its quills and bones and fur, brought Roo all the joy her puppy heart could handle.

It wasn’t exactly a funeral, or a celebration of life, but there it was before me on a perfect, summer evening: unmistakable death enveloped by undeniable joy.

Which leads me back to where I began this post, considering death in celebratory, rather than only somber ways. I haven’t forgotten about the tacos.

This October, I’m co-hosting a Retreat in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead festivities. My fellow travelers and I will experience first-hand what it means to joyously celebrate death.

We are designing this retreat around the theme of letting go of things; to celebrate what was, and welcome what will come with intention.   It’s a retreat likely to encourage more tequila and tacos than usual, and we’ll be vibing in the heart of a lively city instead of vibing with the beach life. But my signature themes on my retreats, where guests are wholly supported along their inward journey, will be fully embraced within the experience.

It will be a Retreat that encourages our personal growth.  Not only dare we try the habanero salsa on our street tacos, but to be brave enough to do something different in our lives – something that fulfills us.

We will shake out grief, not necessarily for a person, but for all the things we may have lost.

Perhaps the death of a side of ourselves we are ready to shed. Maybe we are shifting our self-perception and saying goodbye to limitations. Thanking them, and then joyfully walking into fresh open space, ready to create a new kind of life.

A life where we meet our loss by strumming the guitars, shaking the marakas, and swishing rainbow skirts, celebrating what joy is now gone, and celebrating what new joy will now come.

It is a coincidence to be launching this Retreat the same week we lost Ted. And a coincidence that Roo showed me exactly what joy and death could look like if we changed our perspective.

Or is it?

In Mexico City, surrounded by colourful smiles of happy skulls, we’ll learn to let go and celebrate what once held a place in our lives.  And, we’ll welcome all the new parts of life yet to come in a swath of jubilant color and music, intentional gratitude, and personal, unbridled joy.   

(And feast on incredible tasting tacos.)

~ Christy

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