During a fit of getting her affairs in order, my mother asked my sisters and me to go through her house and make a list of the things we wanted someday. The idea was to prevent arguments after she died, but as it turned out there was only one thing we all treasured: the pair of small pumpkin lanterns we'd carried as kids to go trick-or-treating.
Back then, Halloween wasn't so much about costumes, which were unsophisticated by today's reality standards, or even candy, often homemade popcorn balls and caramel apples you'd have to throw away now without sampling. With only nine houses on our street, there was a limit to how far we could fill the pillowcases that bumped against our legs.
Instead it was about the excitement of walking alone after dark on our dirt road surrounded by woods, a road we knew well by day but that took on unfamiliar and spooky dimensions at night.
One Halloween when we were in the sixth grade, a friend and I set out on my bike after school to buy a last-minute accessory for my costume. We never made it to the store. We were hit by a driver who didn't stick around to see the damage my friend would carry with her forever in the form of a long, ugly scar.
That night, my parents made me a bed on the couch so I could see the beggars that came to our door. Meanwhile my sisters took my pillowcase and trick-or-treated on my behalf. Spreading out our loot later, we were surprised to see that I got the biggest share.
Then, as now, Halloween started with choosing just the right pumpkin and scooping out its insides with a spoon until the slick pulp made my arm itch. With little artistic talent, I carved the same triangle eyes and nose every time.
Roasting the seeds was my father's job. And every Halloween for 25 years, I called to ask him for the directions. Like my midnight call on New Year's Eve, it was an excuse to talk to him directly rather than through the filter of my mother, code for, "I'm just checking in. I love you."
The ritual began the year I was married, as my husband and I hung curtains and carved pumpkins at our Michigan State apartment, Hall and Oates' "Sara Smile" playing on the turntable in the background. Back then, it was a way to reassure my father that he hadn't lost his daughter, that she'd always need his help.
Later, when he was sick, it was a way to ease our fear with the familiar, a reassurance that I'd carry on the family traditions after he was gone.
Shortly after he died, I found myself carving pumpkins with my German exchange daughter. Reaching for the phone without thinking to ask for the recipe, I felt my father's absence so sharply it took my breath away.
Last week, that daughter was back for a visit with her brother and her boyfriend. This time, they carved the pumpkins themselves, then Googled the recipe for roasting the seeds.
They were good, but they weren't the same. I doubt they ever will be.
Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.
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