Trick or Treat

The specter of Halloween has loomed for the last few months, ever since the decorations and displays started appearing in stores.   Of all the holidays, it’s the one I’ve dreaded most.  Why?  Because of all the holidays, it was Bunny’s absolute favorite, and I’m not looking forward to the first one without him. 

Every year by this time, Bunny had stocked up on candy and decorations.  Every year, my plans to turn off the lights and pretend we weren’t home were met with incredulity; it was simply inconceivable to him that we wouldn’t participate.  He always put a lot of thought into buying the “good” candy, whereas I’d buy whatever was on sale.

October 31^st was one day I could always expect him home before dark.  He’d get out in the yard and arrange his surprises—motion-activated talking skulls, jack-o-lanterns, and spider webs, among other things.  He’d pull out the biggest bowl he could find and load it with candy, then wait for the little ghosts and goblins to come.  He’d ooh and aah over the costumes, and make nerd-chatter with the superheroes and sci-fi characters.  That was the routine on the years he stayed home.

Whenever he could, he liked to actually take kids trick-or-treating.  When Joey was little, we’d take turns escorting him and his friends around to the houses.  Once Joey outgrew Halloween, Bunny would borrow kids from his friends or co-workers.  Not that the parents would just hand their kids over—Bunny would invite the parents to bring their kids.  One year, we joined my friend Sally for her daughter’s first Halloween.

Corey and her family love Halloween as much as Bunny did.  Every year, they have a big celebration with a costume party.  Since JoCo lived out-of-state until last December, if was usually impossible to borrow Trinity for Halloween.  However, Bunny was diagnosed with cancer in June 2009, and knowing that his time was most likely limited, I prevailed upon JoCo to let her fly down for Halloween that year.

Bunny was beside himself with excitement!  Not only did he and Trinity carve pumpkins together, but he decided, for the first time ever, to trick or treat in full makeup.  He and I did Trinity’s makeup for her ghost bride get-up, and she made up Bunny to be a devil.  I did my own makeup to be a cat.  We walked the entire neighborhood, with Bunny chatting up the folks who had decorated their houses.  It was, he later declared, the best Halloween ever.

Last August, I flew up to Virginia to babysit the girls while JoCo went away for the weekend to celebrate Joey’s birthday.  While we were out shopping one day, Trinity found a candle with skulls all over it.  When you light the candle, blood (i.e., red wax) pours out of their eyes.  She excitedly begged me to buy it for Poppi for Halloween.  “He’ll love it!!  It’s so gross!”  She and Bunny shared a love of the repulsive. 

I brought it home and showed it off to Bunny like it was one of the crown jewels.  His eyes sparkled with excitement.  Had it been my bleeding-skull candle, I’d have lit it in a minute.  Bunny, however, could be very patient.  I wasn’t able to get Trinity down here last Halloween. By then, Bunny was fairly house-bound; walking any distance tired him out and caused him pain.  On Halloween, I asked when he was going to light his candle.

“I’m going to wait until Trinity comes for Halloween again.”  This statement took me by surprise, since by then he knew that he wasn’t likely to see another Halloween.  He managed to place a few of his decorations in the yard, but more slowly than he had in years past.

The unlit candle is still on the end table next to his chair.  We’ll probably burn it this year, but it won’t be the same without Bunny enthusing over it.  I don’t know why Bunny loved Halloween as much as he did.  Maybe it’s because it was the one night of the year when he could release his inner child.  Maybe it’s because he was just a big kid at heart, loving make-believe and scary stuff, and enjoying it even more seeing it through the eyes of the actual kids.

A few days ago, Trinity mentioned her pumpkin plans for this year: she was going to carve a cancer ribbon into one, “for Poppi.”  I was touched when she said it, and misted up just a bit.  Then I saw the finished product tonight on Facebook, and my tears flowed, unbidden.  Bunny would have loved it.