Halloween was a particularly difficult time for her as so much of the abuse took place under the guise of dark worship. It and Christmas were the times her others (as she called them) were most apt to damage her through self-inflicted wounds etc. The idea of reinventing Halloween so as to reclaim it for herself as a time of fun and celebration especially appealed to her.

So what we do each year is celebrate the life of my wife's friend who passed away ten years ago. I'll bake a lemon meringue pie, because it was her favourite, and we invite any of our friends over who want to remember someone who was important to them, or who just want to eat lemon pie.

As the temperature's been dropping at nights, everything in my garden is withering. It's time to start putting the beds to sleep for the winter. The raccoons in the neighbourhood are looking so big that they are waddling as they walk, making me wonder how they're going to get into their nests up in the tree out back.

The couple of Red Tail hawks who seem to winter in the city have shown up and are delighting in terrifying pigeons across town by flying over them; causing them to rise en masse to spiral against the grey pre winter sky. Most of the Canada Geese are long gone and the squirrels are in overdrive with their gathering of foodstuffs to cram their nests for the upcoming lean times.

Is it any wonder that so many people's consider this the end of a year or equate it with death? What better time is there then now to become introspective when all is becoming dormant around you? The cycle of life in the natural world is on pause for the next few months.

Like the farmers of old took stock of their inventory of feed and produce that was to see them through the winter months, we take stock of the things that we have to be grateful for from the past year. They are the stores that will get us through any austere times we may face in the immediate future.

There is nothing glamorous or flamboyant about how we mark this time. No elaborate rituals that have no relevancy to our lives. We aren't farmers so a celebration of the harvest has no meaning to us. We have created something that is reflective of the way we are trying to live our life in the here and now.

We've been doing this for the past six years now, and it works for us. To me this is how I can best honour the older ways that I'm trying to emulate, while still remembering my personal reality of being a city dweller. I'm a child of the twentieth century and denying that by acting out harvest rituals from thousands of years ago seems foolish and dishonest.

Have a wonderful Halloween everybody, no matter how you choose to observe it.