Day of the Dead observance returning to community garden
‘When we share our pain, it becomes less of a burden’
La Calavera Catrina, the Mexican grand dame of the afterlife, is believed to protect the souls of deceased loved ones. Through gaiety and celebration, she helps those left behind accept the inevitability of death.
Much like last year’s Celebration of Life at the Edna White Community Garden, 1850 W. Monterey Avenue in Chicago’s Morgan Park neighborhood, this year’s event promises a soulful observance and a mixing of cultural traditions.
Amid crackling bonfires, lifesize skeleton figures of Catrinas, Mexican music, tables stocked with sweets, and carts selling tamales, this year’s observance is set to start 6 p.m., Tuesday. It also will include a performance by a bag piper and a woman dressed as The Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of death.A
“I’m Irish, I wanted to include a bagpiper,” said the community garden’s executive director, Kathy Figel.
Figel, who teaches special education at Veterans Memorial Middle School in Blue Island, organized last year’s event, wanting to help families process grief in response to the pandemic. Friendships she’s fostered with school staff members and Blue Island families who honor Mexican Day of the Dead traditions served as inspiration.
For last year’s event, Teresa Casasola created a life-size Catrina. This year, she added further embellishments to the Catrinas’ dress.
About a year ago, a grateful crowd numbering around 50 from Beverly and Morgan Park had gathered around a yellow garden shed converted into an Ofrenda altar featuring photos of their loved ones and others from the community. Several people came to honor friends and family members lost to COVID-19.
“People really needed something like this,” Figel said, recalling those who had prayed and shared fond memories. “I think no matter what’s happening in the world, we all do.”
For the last several weeks, to raise money for the community garden, Figel has once again been accepting suggested $10 donations via Venmo for laminating and posting photos of departed loved ones on the shed once again. She welcomes more images at her email address, kathyfigel@icloud. com.
“We had set a deadline of Oct. 29 for people to email me their photos, but if you don’t email a photo and donate, just please come,” Figel said. “The idea is mainly to connect and gain a sense of community. When we share our pain, it becomes less of a burden.”
Ben Heimach-Snipes of Morgan Park Presbyterian Church will give a benediction. Figel also intends for this year’s observance to honor Chicagoans lost to violence as well as fallen police officers.
For children, the event offers face painting, hot cocoa, and an outdoor screening of the animated Disney movie, “Coco,” about an aspiring young musician who enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer.
Last week, Figel and other volunteers were clearing out withered vegetation and preparing the garden for winter, but during summer and fall months the garden’s raised beds produce an assortment of peppers, tomatoes,
greens and herbs for the Morgan Park Food Pantry.
An on-site bee observatory and knowledgeable speakers further public education about gardening and nature. Native plants support a variety of pollinators including bees inhabiting the on-site apiary.
Beyond several varieties of milkweed, butterfly weed and coneflower, visitors also can see and learn about prairie asters, native grasses and plants like the toad lily.
The urban oasis serves as the starting point for the Beverly Area Planning Association’s annual garden walk. It also hosts educational workshops, from bee keeping to wreath making and winter bird feeding.
Photos of the departed will remain on the Ofrenda shrine through November. Among those images is the garden’s namesake, Edna White.