All Souls Day: The People We Still Carry With Us

A commitment to show up and write my truth | Day 307 of 365

Yesterday was All Saints' Day, and I went to Mass and lit a candle. I wrote about the unknown saints in All Saints' Day: A Good Life Doesn't Need an Audience, the people who love quietly and keep going when no one is watching. Today is All Souls Day, and I love how naturally one day leads into the next. Yesterday honored all the saints, including the ones the world never heard of. Today turns toward the people we knew by name, and some of them, I think, were that kind of saint.

Most of the year, grief is private. It catches you in the grocery store or at a red light, and you carry it home on your own. All Souls Day is different. For one day, people everywhere remember out loud, lighting candles and saying the names of the ones they miss.

I really find comfort in that too. I think it's really sweet, and it gives the missing somewhere to go.

My grandmothers are on my heart this year. I can still walk through both of their kitchens in my mind. There were always special treats waiting, and the rooms felt warm and easy to settle into. Nothing in those kitchens ever changed. Year after year, everything stayed exactly where it had always been. As a kid I never thought twice about it. Now I understand how much comfort lived in that sameness. Those kitchens felt like home, and they felt like them.

My soul sister was family in every way that counts. Many, many times, we'd call each other in the late afternoon and talk through what was in our fridges to see if we could figure out dinner. It was the most fun thing to do, and it taught me something I still use to this day. I'll look at a carrot, maybe a pomegranate, some pumpkin seeds, a special olive oil, just random things, and figure out how it all comes together. She was the one I ran everything by, and I miss those calls more than I can explain.

I'm thinking of my cousin too. We shared an understanding of something that you can't quite get unless you've been through it yourself or are going through it now. Because of that, we were able to support each other in ways other people couldn't. Having someone who simply got it, with no explaining needed, made everything lighter to carry.

None of them needed an audience for the way they loved. They each loved me differently, but they left me with the same feeling.

I was known, loved, and cared for. With each of them, I could just be myself, and that was always enough.

The missing shows up when you least expect it. Every time something good happens, my first instinct is to tell them. I wish they could have met my daughter. And when things get hard, I still find myself wanting the comfort only they knew how to give.

What All Souls Day Teaches Us About Love

I used to think a day like this was mostly about sadness. I see it differently now. Praying for the people we've lost is one of the oldest ways we have of saying the relationship still matters. You keep showing up for someone, even after they're gone.

Remembering is also a choice. I can let missing them sit on me like a weight, or I can let it shape how I love the people still in front of me. Most days, I choose the second. I try to make my home feel the way my grandmothers' kitchens felt. I try to be for my friends what my soul sister was for me. I'm grateful I was loved like that, and I want to pass it on.

You probably have your own names today. Maybe there's a kitchen you can still walk through with your eyes closed. Maybe there was someone you called just to figure out dinner, and the call was never really about dinner. If you light a candle tonight or say their names out loud, you're doing what people have done on this day for generations. You're keeping them with you.

Tonight I'll light a candle and say a prayer. Then I'll do the thing that keeps them closest.

I'll talk about them and remember them fondly. And for a little while, it will feel like they're right here with me.

About the Author | Day 307 of 365

I'm a soul-led coach, entrepreneur, mother, and recovering perfectionist, currently navigating healing, uncertainty, temporary chapters, motherhood, work, big transitions, grief, nervous system healing, overstimulation, emotional growth, and the ongoing lesson that life works a whole lot better when we stop trying to carry everything alone. Today that lesson looked like making room to remember the people whose love helped shape who I am.

Day 307 of 365. Still showing up. Still carrying their love with me. 🐧