This Halloween season has been distinctly different for me. I am having a difficult time of it because I lost my mother and aunt earlier this year. Memories keep swirling through my mind of Halloweens past, when Mom took us trick-o-treating as little kids and Aunt Margie (my mother's sister) used to come over to the house and celebrate with us.

My mother had been an actress in many of our church’s theater productions, so she encouraged my desire to role-play all the time, but especially at Halloween. Even when I got older and dressed up, Mom delighted in seeing my costume, though a few years when I was something rather grizzly and gory she would scold me for being too extreme. My aunt always gave me a Halloween card and a little gift (even right up until last year). I think I looked forward to the day so much because they had taught me early on that this was not a day of fear but one of magic and delight.

When I was a teenager living in Queens, New York, my friends and I dressed usually as derelicts or zombies and went around the neighborhood with cans of shaving cream and a dozen eggs stuffed in our pockets. After an evening of bombing buses with eggs and zapping fences, doorways, and parked cars with shaving cream, we would embark on the long walk up the winding hill to Cypress Hills Cemetery to visit the site of Harry Houdini’s grave. The legend was that Harry had promised his wife if he could find a way to come back he would do so on Halloween at midnight. Over the years, we encountered numerous goblins and ghouls congregating at the gravesite, but the famous magician’s spirit never materialized.

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday and even long after some of my friends hung up their costumes for what they thought was forever, I celebrated the day with fervor and passion. During my undergrad and grad school days, a good friend had a Halloween bash every year (the fact that he lived in an apartment above a funeral home only added to the haunted excitement). In subsequent years, I went with my friends (who came back to the day of tricks and treats as they got older) to a local tavern where a costume contest was held every Halloween. Once I became a father, the day took on even more significance and I celebrated it anew because of my daughter’s excitement.