A Halloween With and Without Kai

This year's Halloween would be different for us. We are one loved one less yet we are also one loved one more. This year's Halloween would be about the three of us - my husband, myself and our son, Kai.

I know he's gone and no amount of wishing could bring him back. As much as I want him to be with us in all the festivities of coming holidays and celebrations, it's simply not possible anymore. And this is the reality that I live with everyday. This cold, dark reality. But even this harsh reality can't stop me from including my son in every event and in every thing that happens in our life as a couple and as parents.

Kai may not be with us physically, but we do our best to remember him  and think of him while we do things together. We are creating memories with him carried in our hearts. Always. Melissa quoted another BLM who said something very fitting and resonated with me: "We may have had limited time to make memories WITH our babies, but we have limitless opportunities to make memories in HONOR of them."

This is exactly how I feel. This is what makes me face the reality of his absence squarely. Even if sometimes all the grief brings me down and forces me to inertia, I choose to move forward because as I see it, I have limitless opportunities to make memories in honor of my son. I can't waste every bit of time I have on this good earth not doing anything. And as one song said: "Gotta live like we're dying." So I make sure every memory my husband and I create together count not just for us, but also for Kai.

Today's holiday is one opportunity we have to create memories for our son. We updated his corner and carved pumpkins. We have four pumpkins this year as opposed to one last year. We usually carve only one pumpkin every year because we have a tendency to do it at the last minute and only had time to clean out and carve a big pumpkin before the trick-or-treaters knock on our door.

But not this Halloween. We bought four pumpkins - two large ones, a medium one and a little one. One large pumpkin will be our traditional yearly pumpkin, while the other three would be for my husband, myself and Kai. Of course, we've put off getting the pumpkins until yesterday night. We figured we got some time and there were still a lot pumpkins left in our neighborhood pumpkin patch. So we got there an hour before closing last night and we almost got kicked out.

Imagine running around the place like chickens without heads - "How about this one? Or that one? Oh yeah better get that one over there too. Hurry! Hurry!" Man, we were like goofy contestants in a game show or a wheel-barrow relay. But closing time aside, we really decided to go there a little late to make sure we got the pumpkin patch all to ourselves. It wasn't too crowded and there were no parents with babies around. Ah bliss!

So today we got down to the business of carving. My husband was the designated pumpkin guts cleaner. He made sure that the inside of our pumpkins were clean and ready for carving.

He loves his power tool.

I plan to roast these pumpkin seeds.

Meanwhile, I tackled the carving of the medium and the little pumpkins. It took me quite some time to choose the stencils I was going to use. I didn't want something too complicated. I love Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, so I chose to carve him for my pumpkin. As for Kai's wee pumpkin, I found a little scarecrow. I managed to carve the pumpkins, but after the whole thing was done my fingers hurt. It felt like I had carpal tunnel syndrome all of a sudden. Anyway, it didn't matter because I think I did a good job at carving me and my son's pumpkins, don't you think so? :)

Mommy and Kai's pumpkins, Jack Skellington and The Little Scarycrow.

My husband, on the other hand, volunteered to carve the big ones. He made our "traditional" pumpkin. It's the pumpkin we always carve every year. It came about when I originally wanted to do a Pinhead (from the horror movie, Hellraiser) pumpkin for my former workplace's Halloween contest a couple of years ago.

But it was too much work and I didn't have time to follow through with it, so I opted to just do a pumpkin with a bunch of eyes and called it, "I See Dead People" pumpkin for the contest. My husband thought it would be a nice backup pumpkin that we could do if we happen to be too lazy or too lacking in the creativity department during Halloween.

As for his own pumpkin, well, he took his time as usual. He kept changing his mind about the stencils he wanted to use. He went online searching for one stencil after another. I reminded him to keep it simple since he didn't have much time. He wanted to do a Frankenstein at first, then a steampunk-inspired one, then his favorite sci-fi character. I told him, "Hubby, it's almost 5pm, I think you better start carving or you won't have your pumpkin done." With that, he did away with using a stencil and just started carving free style. And he came up with what I christened, "Mr. Bad Hair Day" pumpkin.

Many-eyed pumpkin and daddy's freestyle creation, "Mr. Bad Hair Day" pumpkin.

We were able to get these pumpkins out on our porch before the trick-or-treaters arrived. Some of the kids and their parents complimented our pumpkins. A few liked Kai's cute pumpkin. You could imagine my mother's pride.

As for the trick-or-treaters we encountered, they were mostly older kids. No babies, thank goodness. But just for good measure, I had my husband answer the door most of the time and give out the candies. There were times I got to see some of them and meet their parents. But all in all, it was uneventful in terms of babies-in-costume-sightings.

The Simes' Family pumpkins.

I like how they look at night with candles in them.

We went about this whole holiday, thinking and remembering our son. It's really bittersweet. But we wouldn't have it any other way. As Kai's parents, we'll make sure that he gets "to experience" everything this life has to offer...through us, through our love for each other and through the memories we create together. We will never be truly without him.

I hope you liked the pumpkin mommy carved for you, Kai. Just wait til you see what daddy and mommy will come up next year. Oh, the stories we'll tell you. We love you bunches, Lumpy.