Every year as October turns into November, darkness casts a shadow on “the spooky season”. Occurring around the same time as Halloween, All Souls Day is a day of remembrance for those who passed away. Families in many countries around the world, such as the Philippines, the United Kingdom and Poland visit the family dead, clean and repair their family tombs, light candles and offer food. I have decided to share the tension between fun and darkness that I have always felt during the week of Halloween, wondering if I am the only one feeling hollow.

Every year as October turns into November, I see people excited about dressing up in a costume they have secretly been preparing to wear on Halloween. One part of me wants to join these Halloween activities, while the other part of me feels guilty for wanting to do so in the first place.

Every year as October turns into November, I celebrate Halloween with a tension between playful spookiness and deathly darkness. I hear my family back home planning visits to cemeteries in villages that my ancestors were from. I remember visiting the graves of the family members I never met and lighting candles on tombstones that bore my last name in places I have never been to but somehow came from. As a child, I struggled to understand what death was. I was surrounded by it, yet I never encountered it until my grandma passed away a few years later.

Every year as October turns into November, I wonder about my grandma. As I complete my studies at NYU Abu Dhabi this year, I feel her presence more than ever. My grandma valued education so much that she graduated from the University of Third Age at 60. She was with me as I struggled through my assignment of writing the first letter of the alphabet in cursive. What would she have said had she seen me graduate from NYUAD, one of the best schools in the world with proficiency in English? I wonder if she had not lived behind the Iron Curtain, could she have a scholarship at one of the best universities in the world too? If she could see me now, would she fulfill a dream she was never allowed to have?

Every year as October turns into November, my eyes fill with tears of gratitude and honor to study with the level of support my great grandparents could have never imagined. I hear that they lived their whole lives in the place they were born and about times where they did not have access to electricity. I see the constraints that were lifted for me. One part of me wants to celebrate the opportunities I get to live with. The other commands me to work harder to live up to the dreams of those who could not have them. Both happen simultaneously. Both happen in grief.

As October turns into November, I will celebrate life in the shadow of death. The brightness of the future ahead of me, the darkness of the past behind me. Both happen simultaneously, both happen in grief.