We now have an ancestral altar. My children designed it after their great-grandmother died, with connector beads, feathers and gummy bears. This changed the way we grieve and did amazing things.
It started with a simple black picture frame. I bought it the day my grandma died, printed out a photo of her as we last saw her. In it she is wearing her cardigan and appears to be speaking into the camera. I placed it on a low cabinet with a candle. Complete.
But that was just the beginning. I had no idea what would come of this gesture. Ahnen, that’s the right keyword.
It developed slowly. The cabinet with the picture frame was within sight of our dining table. The children, then 4 and 1.5 years old, often walked past it when they picked up their craft supplies and had the photo nearby as they drew with crayons and crayons at the dinner table. Soon they placed their pictures next to the photo with the candle, some folded as a letter, “for great-grandma.” Then the children began to leave little treasures that they had brought with them from outside with Great Grandma.
She was given snail shells and smooth stones. Nice pieces of bark and shells. Plucked daisies with stems that are way too short and soft feathers.
Memorial full of lightness
I was touched by the ease with which the children filled the small memorial site. There was something playful about it and I soon found it incredibly fun to bring beautiful things from nature for my grandma. She was present, in a good way.
Of course, the children didn’t have to deal with the kind of grief I felt. For her there was no “never again” or “gone forever.” That’s exactly why it was so nice to learn from them.
After my grandmother’s apartment was cleared out, I brought an old wooden cupboard with me to our house. It was a graceful sewing table with curved legs that had stood in my grandmother’s living room for decades. After my grandfather died – ten years before her – she always had a picture frame with his photo there, along with a grave light and a bouquet of fabric flowers. It took our memorial that we “accidentally” built to the next level.
The sewing table became an ancestral altar. Not because of religious beliefs, but because it developed that way and felt right.
Ancestral altar with plug beads and gummy bears
We placed the black picture frame with my grandma on it, who was quickly surrounded by new treasures. From iron-on patches made from connector beads, felted flowers and glittering stickers. And because it was all so beautiful, with the gifts and the friendly presence, I finally picked out photos of my other deceased grandparents and put them there. My husband’s grandmas also joined us; their picture frames had previously been on a shelf and were now given a new place.
Because I had inherited dishes that we actually had no use for, I put a nostalgic gravy boat on the cupboard. The children put gummy bears and half-eaten cookies inside – “for the great-grandmothers”. On New Year’s Eve they provided streamers at the photo frames.
A changed view of life and family
Around Halloween, when the children were older, I watched the Pixar film “Coco” with the five-year-old. It’s about the Mexican ancestor cult surrounding Dia de Muertos, the “Day of the Dead”. One thought in it: Only the ancestors whose photo is placed with a family member on that day can come to visit the kingdom of the living via the flower bridge and attend the communal celebration. I thought the picture of the bridge was very beautiful. The opulent and above all happy celebration of memories anyway. Since then, I have seen the cabinet differently, perhaps as a bridge between past, present and future.
It shows us: “This is where you come from”, “From us you received the gift of life”. Looking into the faces of the deceased, the ancestors, gives me the feeling of being part of the pearl necklace of life. And sometimes a quick look at the cupboard after an argument helps me put everyday annoyances into perspective and think more quickly: It’s not all that bad. We live.
Sometimes the now six-year-old stands in front of the cupboard and arranges a few gemstones or lays a tower of stones. Sometimes she takes a moment to look closely at the photos of her great-grandparents – before dashing off to her next game. Recently she said to me: “Mom, I love you. I love my whole family. Even those who have already died. They are part of it too.”
That is exactly the impulse that such an ancestral closet sends: these people belong to it. And as long as it feels right to us, this little cabinet will remain in plain sight. My grandma’s picture frame is no longer black. I also replaced the photo. Now there is a snapshot there that was taken at our wedding, when she was almost 91 years old: She is sitting on her walker and holding a lemonade bottle up in the air as a cheers, laughing happily.
Cheers, Grandma!