These days dry leaves on paths through the cemetery where I walk are red, yellow and orange. When I started walking these paths in March, tree limbs were bare. In the spring, families planted colorful flowers at grave sites. Now there are pumpkins, fall flowers and Halloween decorations.

Love exudes from those left behind. On a shiny headstone marked 2019, a plastic case securely fastened and holding a leather journal lies behind the gravestone for visitors to send greetings to the young veteran who is buried there.

These activities are reminiscent of Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which this year will be celebrated Saturday, Oct. 31. Traditions from Mexico were brought to the United States hundreds of years ago. Vibrant colors and objects such as Calaveras, or decorative skulls made of sugar, along with marigold flowers, lend their bright color to the fall celebration.

In the southwest on Día de los Muertos, cemeteries are alive with people honoring their deceased loved ones by taking time to gather, pray and party at the sites. The movie “Coco” poignantly illustrates this tradition. It is believed that with proper transactions the dead will return, if ever so briefly. Ancestors are lured back to us with ofrendas, or home altars, on which photographs of the deceased are placed. Food figures prominently in the celebration. Favorite foods and drinks are prepared and shared. In Arizona, where I lived for 35 years, barbecue grills were a staple at the grave sites and entire families gathered on blankets for picnics. It is all done in the cause of aiding those who are making their spiritual journey home.

Here around my family plot I am seeing traditional Halloween decor pop up everywhere. One day last week two beer cans had been placed on a headstone. Another grave was decorated with wispy, white gauze simulating ghosts.

The plot I speak of is home to my husband’s people. His grandparents, both born in the late 1800s, are surrounded by the graves of their children and several of the children’s spouses. No one has been buried there in the past 25 years and they were all adults when they died.

I’m not sure if these proper New Englanders, whose ancestors came to the state of Maine from England in the late 1600s and never left this state, would understand the exuberance of Día de los Muertos. They were members of the Congregational Church and practiced their faith soberly. Not the barbecue of the southwest but lobster stew and shrimp salad were their preferred party food.

Nonetheless, I do know that they enjoyed a proper tea. This year I’m going to take a small table with a fancy white cloth, tea, cookies and some family pictures to the grave. I think they will like this. After all, Día de los Muertos is a celebration. As said by George Eliot, “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”