Each year on November 1 and 2, families across Mexico gather to celebrate Día de Muertos — the Day of the Dead — a vibrant tradition that honours the lives of loved ones who have passed away. Rather than a somber occasion, it is a time of remembrance filled with colour, music and joy, reflecting the belief that those who came before us remain part of our lives through love and memory.
At Chapel on October 31, members of the Spanish Club shared the meaning and spirit of this cherished tradition with the SMUS community. Club heads Valentina Elizalde '26 and Isabel Zapata '27 introduced the presentation, explaining how families decorate altars with flowers, candles, food and photos to welcome the spirits of their ancestors home for a short visit.
Grade 12 students Alexander Zabaneh and Julian Bezeau then offered heartfelt reflections of their own. Alexander spoke about how Día de Muertos reminds him of his grandmother, whose laughter and warmth continue to live on in his memories. Julian shared stories from his summer in Mexico City, where he experienced the generosity and connectedness at the heart of the celebration — a reminder, he said, “that everyone is connected” and that embracing life’s impermanence can make every moment richer.
To close, Spanish Club co-head Valentina Elizalde shared a deeply personal piece about love, memory and the enduring presence of family. Her reflection, shared below in full, captures the essence of Día de Muertos — that remembrance is an act of gratitude, and that even as life passes, its sweetness remains.
Words by Valentina Elizalde
In Mexico, death has never been a stranger.
We don’t hide from it — we invite it in.
We paint it with color, with songs, with marigolds.
Because for us, death isn’t an ending.
It’s a mirror that reminds us how beautiful, fragile, and brief life really is.
I’ve always thought that Día de Muertos isn’t about death at all.
It’s about love.
About memory.
About that invisible thread that keeps us connected to the people who came before us.
When I think of that, I think of my great-grandfather.
He passed away in 2016, after fighting cancer for years.
I was little — too young to really understand what was happening — but somehow, I still
remember so much.
I remember arriving at his house and being greeted with one of his famous lollipops —
sometimes caramel, sometimes rainbow.
He’d hand them to us with that smile that made everything feel okay.
We’d sit on his bed, watching his old TV, laughing about telenovelas.
He used to call Lo que la vida me robó “What the wind took away.”
I laughed every time. Maybe because even then, I liked the sound of it.
Because it didn’t feel like something was stolen — just carried away by the wind.
When I moved cities at four years old, we didn’t see him much.
But he was always there — in phone calls, in my mom’s worried voice as she spoke
about how his health was getting worse.
And even though cancer took his strength, it never took his smile.
He depended on my grandma and her sisters for everything, yet he never complained.
He just… smiled.
When he passed, he was surrounded by love — family holding his hand, praying, being there.
And that image comforts me. Because that’s what Día de Muertos is all about:
leaving this world surrounded by love, and being remembered with it too.
Even years later, it feels like he never really left.
My cousin — who never even met him — once said she saw an old man sitting in my
grandma’s living room, quietly drinking coffee.
She described him exactly as he was.
And for a moment, everyone just went silent.It felt like his spirit had stopped by to say hello,
to remind us he was still around, just in another form.
We don’t build big ofrendas at home — no candles, no paper decorations.
But we have stories, photos, and prayers. And I think that’s just as powerful.
Because memory is an altar — one that we carry inside us.
So every time I think of him, I remember his smile… and his lollipops.
The way they melted slowly, like time.
How their colors faded, like the days we can’t hold onto.
But even when they were gone, the sweetness stayed.
And maybe that’s what life is all about —
It melts away, just like a lollipop on a warm day.
But if you really pay attention, the sweetness always stays.
Because in Mexico, we grow up knowing that death walks beside us, not behind us.
It reminds us to celebrate, to forgive, to love loudly.
To live fully — to sing, to cry, to dance — because everything, even the pain, is part of being alive.
We learn that remembrance isn’t sadness; it’s gratitude.
And that the people we’ve lost never really go — they live in our words, in our food, in
our laughter, in the small moments that taste like caramel or rainbow.
That’s what Día de Muertos teaches us —
that life is brief, but it’s also endlessly beautiful,
and that when the wind finally carries us away,
may it find us smiling…
with a lollipop in hand.
Liisa Salo
