Ryma loved Halloween! She would throw herself into it each year. I don’t mean with month-long decorations, or throwing parties, but she was all-in for trick-or-treating, to include always wearing a costume, and she loved it when kids would greet her with “hi, Cinderella,” or whatever her costume happened to be!
The first couple of years that we lived in Bristow, our routine was that I’d take Angel and Jessica out trick-or-treating, and Ryma would stay home to hand out candy. She loved it! After a couple years, when the girls lost interest in going door-to-door, I’d stay home and hand out candy with her.
I’m not sure why she liked Halloween so much. Maybe just because it’s so fun. Maybe because it’s quintessentially American. When I first met her, I asked her what Jakarta was like. She described a city with shopping malls that had all the same chain stores and restaurants as we have in the US. As a Christian, her calendar of holidays wasn’t significantly different from ours: Christmas, Easter, etc. Halloween, on the other hand, is uniquely American. Anyway, as a sign of the extent to which she assimilated, she was all-American!
When I say “she” put up decorations each year, I mean that she had me put up decorations. See-through screens in the windows with opaque backdrops, strobe lights to flash through, not to mention carving jack-o-lanterns. Each year I’d encourage her to back off a little, frankly because I hoped each year to do a little less work. Sadly, I got my wish this year. I put up a few things, and was prepared to hand out candy, but Halloween was bittersweet this year. Fortunately, by strange coincidence, the girls were both home from school to help soften the blow.
These are just a couple pictures of Ryma celebrating her last Halloween in 2016. By this point, we knew that her cancer had returned, and that she would resume chemotherapy, but from the pictures you’d never know it. She never, ever stopped smiling.
