Doll—human and super human-sized Catrinas, playful skeletons, began adorning the sidewalks in front of businesses and homes as Oaxaca filled up with tourists. Dressed in elegant outfits from the turn of the 20th century with elaborately made-up faces, these Catrina ladies and sometimes men, remind us to embrace passionate lives while also remaining close to those we’ve loved and lost. Death is not to be feared, the Catrinas declare. We are all dancing with death, the part of life that gives it meaning. When I turned 60, it hit me hard that “someday” was no longer a given. Of course, it never was, but 60 smashed the point home. I came to live in Oaxaca to learn Spanish, a bucket list item made all the more urgent as soon as our government started putting children in cages. I planned to volunteer at the border, but thought if I could learn Spanish first, I’d be more helpful.

The already colorful streets of Oaxaca were made more so with new murals painted with neon skulls and joyful skeletons. Flower-, candle-, and portrait-filled altars—ofrendas—appeared on sidewalks and in the patios of public and private spaces. The altars offer gifts the deceased loved like mezcal, cigars, chocolate and favorite fruits. Welcome home, the altars say, we miss you and look forward to your visit.

The days long celebration of Día de Muertos had begun. There are two main days, the first remembering children who have died, the next day, adults. Before these two days, though, there are days to honor those who have died violently, or in accidents, or by their own hand. I don’t know which day would make sense to celebrate my former husband, Jimmy.

My Spanish language school took us on a trip to a farm where they grow the flowers, the cempasuchil or flor de muerto, marigolds in English, and the Cresta de Gallo, or Cock’s Comb, used to adorn the altars and skeletons. Brilliant orange, red, pink, purple, and yellow blossoms blanketed the valley and we ate empanadas cooked by skilled ladies on charcoal grills under the few farm trees, and they were the best I’d eaten so far. The petals from the flowers were to be scattered in front of the ofrendas creating paths to guide the deceased home. Could my New York City boy find his way to Oaxaca? Would the unfamiliar still make him stop and turn around?

Every Monday, we rotated teachers and new students arrived daily, but mostly on Mondays, too. One Monday, I met Patrick, Pato in Spanish, which is also the word for duck, as in quack, not Watch out! and I laughed a bit with this first campanero who was about my age, not less than half like my previous classmates. He and his wife Cindy, who was in a more advanced class, were here to explore Oaxaca and work on their Spanish and though Pato is a pilot, he told our grammar teacher Juan and I that he also owned a Christmas tree farm outside of Houston where he and Cindy lived and all of his workers were Mexican, as were many of the members of their church. I’ve lived in New York City for 35 years. I heard Houston, church, Mexican workers, and thought . . . know who he voted for. . . we’ll have nothing in common.

By the end of our two-hour class, struggling and cursing under our breath or right out loud at our inability to remember vocabulary or conjugations, Pato became my best buddy and partner-in-crime.

By the end our first week, we had learned how to say Fuck off, What the fuck, Jerkoff and Suck it. Dick, we asked for clarifications on, as in dick, the male member, or dick, like a purposely irritating person? Cursing, for me, and I suspected for Pato, is a better stress reliever than yoga and meditation combined. Whenever Pato said, “Shit,” after choosing the wrong past tense, I’d quietly remind him, “Mierda.” By the end of our month together, after conversations about volunteer work, traveling, and learning a language at our age, as well as convincing him and Cindy to join me a few times at my nightly dance class where we laughed so hard my nose ran, I decided that Pato and Cindy were two of the best people I’d ever met.

I have loved dancing my whole life, but I had never learned to dance with a partner. My dance partners at my salsa, bachata, and cumbia classes ran the gamut of ages, from seven or eight years old to my age or a little older. Many of the teenage boys were getting ready for the quinceañeras they would be asked to participate in. Changing partners every few minutes required new small talk and all my partners were warm and comforting while I struggled to learn Spanish and the intricacies of each dance. On water breaks, we’d chat more and Beto, a gentleman about my age, who spoke no English, and I, using beginner Spanish, discovered we were both retired teachers. When he told me he’d taught chemistry and physics, I nodded, then swept my hand over my head, making an airplane sound. He laughed.

When I danced with Beto, he led confidently which, in turn, made me a better dancer. He also often complimented what I was wearing and told me I was beautiful and I always responded by saying that I was flattered and grateful for his kind words. It was a teenage crush all over again for the senior citizen set, and the flirtation was fun, and I hoped it stayed so.

I had recently moved into a very inexpensive AirBnB. On arrival, I saw why. I shared a kitchen and common space which was fine, but my tiny, dark room was stuffed with too much furniture and the flat comforter on my bed was full of cigarette burns, and tiny, tiny hormigos were crawling everywhere. The toilet handle was broken so I had to take the lid off the tank to flush and all toilet paper had to go in the garbage pail which explained why the room smelled like ass. The woman from Alabama in the next room spent 24 hours a day throughout the 11 days I was stuck in that hell, playing loud music, passing out in front of TV crime shows, or having conversations on speaker phone, which was how I gleaned she was from Alabama. Like all the nights I would have there, I completely gave up on the idea of sleep and watched the YouTube video our conversation teacher Luis had assigned for homework—a documentary that would teach us the history and significance of Día de Muertos.

The film was beautifully shot, and the language was Zapotec, but I could understand the slow and clear speaking Spanish narrator as we saw a family living on a farm. A little girl led the viewer through the many preparations for El Día: the mole prepared with more than 26 ingredients, the intricate altars built, the tombs freshly tended, and the night spent in the cemetery eating, dancing, and singing songs to celebrate the dead, by celebrating their lives.

She chatted with her deceased grandfather as he explained the significance of each practice and then at the end, the little girl said that her mother couldn’t prepare an altar for her, because it hadn’t been a year yet. And that was the big reveal—the little girl was dead, too. I watched the credits scroll by with mouth slightly agape and realized the hint was there all along. The only reason she could talk with her grandfather was because she was dead, too. The first year after a loved one dies is too soon to ask them back. Jimmy had been dead for four years, but it still felt too soon.

I sat in my dark, dirty room and clutched my heart, mouthing, “I’m going to kill Luis.” My eyes turned toward the wall behind my head where gunshots and the noise of screeching tires pushed through. “Right after I kill that pinche mujer.” Fucking woman.

When I got to school the next morning, Luis laughed when I told him I wanted to kill him. “The little girl was dead! That’s every parent’s worst nightmare,” I said, still shaken and thinking of my two grown sons, and Pato, who had three children, nodded in agreement.

Then our conversation moved on.

The following day, we built An Altar of the Dead in our school. We walked to the local market to buy specific ingredients. The market was colorful and lively and Luis and Pato and I searched at the many booths for our assigned tejocotes and nispero, small local fruits. When we found them, we returned to school, and Pato’s lanky height came in useful for building the altar archway out of tall reeds. Each group of students spoke about the significance of their contribution. Pato and I swore as we prepared to present because we couldn’t remember the words for our fruits, until I made Luis spell them, and when we could picture the words in our minds, we remembered them better. I wished I had a word to understand Jimmy’s death. Maybe if I could name it, see the words clearly . . .

After each group had spoken, Ileana, our school director, showed us a photo of her sister who’d passed away two years earlier. She placed it on the altar and invited all of us to bring in our own pictures of our deceased loved ones. To invite them back. To continue loving them. No one is truly dead until they are forgotten.

The next day, I brought in Jimmy’s funeral card. In the picture, he’s young and handsome, with playful eyes. This is the Jimmy I needed to remember. We hadn’t yet gone through our divorce, our first death. The Jimmy at the end of our 30 years together, whose struggle with addiction had left his body alive, but erased the man he’d been, was not the man I wanted to remember.

When we fought when our boys were little, my oldest would ask, “Is Daddy going to move to Queens?” Two of his kindergarten buddies’ parents had split up and, in each case, the father had moved to Queens. “No, of course not,” I’d answer, never doubting I was telling the truth. “Daddy is my best friend.”

Couples fight, I thought. We’ll work this out. Of course, he’ll find a way to battle this disease. Instead, he disappeared a little more each day.

One morning I was making the school lunches, after Jimmy had left for work, while the boys were still sleeping, and I collapsed on the kitchen floor sobbing. My heart was telling me what my brain refused to know—our marriage was over. The divorce, like life-saving surgery without anesthesia, was excruciating. I focused on saving the friendship, a friendship I still needed. Even with all his struggles, he was the only one who had ever had my back. We were still supposed to grow old together.

I braced Jimmy’s picture against a doll-sized Catrina and laughed, thinking of him returning to this altar. “Where the hell am I?” I could hear him mutter in his thick New York accent. “Oh, X,acka? What kinda name is that? And where the hell is the mayonnaise?” He never ate fresh fruit, but loved mayonnaise right out of a jar.

The altar was just inside the school entrance and when I arrived the next day, I saw two more pictures had been added. One was an elderly woman, someone’s grandmother, I guessed. But there was also a photo of a young man, perhaps in his 30s, who looked very much like a younger version of Pato, and also a bit like Cindy, and when I saw this young person, I panicked. Instantly, I created a story to explain why it must have been placed there by accident. Someone found the picture somewhere else and mistakenly thought it fell off the altar, because surely this striking young man radiating confidence did not belong on an altar of the dead. I kept shoving the truth down, but when it refused to stay, when I had no choice but to acknowledge the unthinkable, I fought the urge to barge into Cindy’s classroom and wrap her tightly in my arms because that’s all you can do, and then do the same with Pato, who by now sat next to me in class. I placed their son in my filing cabinet under Tragedies to Process Later, and Pato and I continued to not remember words we knew we knew and chose the wrong past tense and laughed and laughed at ourselves.

It never felt like the right time to bring up Pato and Cindy’s son. I was in Oaxaca to remember to live fully, and to love, and . . . the parts that tormented, I put on hold. Until they showed up, uninvited, and I allowed them to stay for a moment. Or I didn’t. Or then I did. This was how I was living, and I suspected Pato and Cindy were, too.

I knew rationally that I did not cause Jimmy’s death. It had been his journey and I had spent 30 years trying everything I could to save him.

Emotionally, I still felt like his assassin.

If I hadn’t left him . . . recurringly bubbled into my thoughts of what I needed to pick up at the market or which son I needed to check in with.

One of our last phone calls played on continuous loop.

“Corinne, I need help.”

“I can’t help you anymore, Jimmy,” I said. “You have to figure it out yourself.”

He died a week later.

********

I was thrilled to move into a clean, new AirBnb with lots of light and no one playing TV loudly at 3:00 in the morning. I walked to meet Tomas, one of my language exchange partners, on the park bench we always sat on. He was 23 and this was our third get together. During the first, I had told him why I was in Oaxaca and a little about why I wanted to learn Spanish. He told me of his plans to go to the US in June after he graduated with his bachelor’s degree—to work illegally in a factory. My teacher Martín had told me about a popular meme that showed Mexican students graduating college, then the direction, “Time to go find your coyote,” the nickname for the smugglers in human trafficking. There are good jobs in Mexico for those with connections. For others, college degrees are meaningless.

Our second meeting we talked about girl problems and after trying to help him understand (the girl was American and he thought when she said “I appreciate you” she meant “I love you”) we talked a bit about what we liked and didn’t like about our two countries.

On this visit, he asked if I was married, because we’d already talked about my sons, and he wondered why I hadn’t mentioned their father. I told him my husband had died from addiction four years before. I also told him we were divorced, but still together in the complicated way relationships that stop, but haven’t ended, can be. I also told him that he left me his pension, and if he hadn’t, I could not afford to be in Oaxaca now.

“Oh,” Tomas said intensely. “He really loved you then. At least you had that. Some people never do.”

Tomas wanted to make just enough money so he could marry and have a family. He wanted exactly what I’d wanted. And had gotten. And then blamed myself for losing. I don’t pray, because I don’t believe in the god I was taught was god, but I do go to sleep wishing for good things for others. I added true love and a family for Tomas to my list.

Tomas and I said good night and I went to my dance class where simply moving my body brought sheer joy and for the first time in my month of classes, the salsa routine felt familiar. While I didn’t always execute the steps well, I had learned to respond to the subtleties of a hand movement or a slight pressure with more ease, even if I still lacked the grace I aspired to. And, I also realized, I loved not being the one in control. I loved being led. It was a wonderful counter-balance to so much else in my life.

At the end of class, Beto offered me a ride home on his motorcycle, assuring me he would drive slowly and carefully. “No, gracias,” I declined as kindly as I could. I was very aware of being my sons’ only parent and motorcycles are dangerous, but I was also hesitant because Beto had also slipped in a Estoy enamorado de ti—I’m in love with you—as we were saying good night to each other a few evenings before. We had been chatting about our marital heartbreaks, our children, and how important it is to find the beauty in each day. I thought the world of this sweet, gentle, retired professor and enjoyed our conversations. “Well, good night,” we’d said, and then he slipped in You know, I’m in love with you, right before we were to turn away from each other and go our separate ways. I responded as quickly as I could with I am so grateful for our friendship, and while he seemed to understand, it made me resist his offer of a ride.

I gave him our usual fist tap. “Buenos noches.”

When I had walked a few blocks, the putt, putt of a motorcycle pushed into my distracted thoughts. I turned and found Beto riding slowly by my side.

“Estás seguro?” he asked timidly. Are you sure?

Fuck it, I thought, and hopped on, and the night was full moonlit and the air was cool and crisp and tightening my legs felt good as I held onto Beto’s jacket. My eyes took in the lime green and burnt orange and deep purple cement building fronts as we traveled, yes, slowly and carefully, down the calle and my gaze drifted back up to the beautiful moon.

“Gracias, gracias,” I whispered to Beto’s back, and I was thanking Beto, but I was also talking to Jimmy—Without you, I would not be here. Doing this.

I was in Oaxaca to learn Spanish, I told everyone . . . and that was true. But what was equally true, and didn’t even realize when I first arrived, was that I was also there to learn how to forgive myself. I wasn’t executing the steps of that dance gracefully, either, but I was feeling a subtle shift here and there.

“Cuídate,” Beto said, Take care of yourself, as I got off the back of his motorcycle, trying not to kick him in the process. I’m trying, I thought.

I put my key in the lock of the shiny azul door and turned and smiled. “Gracias, amigo.”

I gave him a little wave as I watched his motorcycle gather momentum and his feet return to the footrests. When he rounded the corner, I shut the door and heard the satisfying sound of the lock snapping into place. I climbed up the steps to my apartment feeling grateful, a little lighter, and anxious to keep dancing.