Cecil, The Sisal Grim Reaper
Six years ago, I found Cecil. I found him on display at the Target by my house, but I couldn’t take him home that day. He was sitting on a shelf in the Halloween aisles. He was the most adorable two-foot tall sisal light-up grim reaper. And the best decoration I’d ever seen. Not just for judging Halloween decorations. He was the best decoration ever, for any holiday. I scoured the shelves of all the sisal creatures, but there were no grim reapers left.
I tried to buy the display, but they couldn’t sell it to me. Some weird rule I can’t remember. And they didn’t have any others in stock. When they checked for me, all the other Targets nearby had questionable inventory. They were either out of stock or showing only one on their shelves. Driving around for work the next few days, I stopped in a handful of other Targets. No Cecil.
After a week of searching, one store’s inventory check showed a few sisal grim reapers in stock. They were at a store 45 minutes away. So the next day, we drove to that Target. I tried not to get my hopes up on our way there. I’d struck out so many times in my search at so many other Targets since I first saw Cecil. This time felt like it could be different, but what if it wasn’t?
When we walked into the store, I beelined for the Halloween section. On our drive, I’d imagined watching someone grab the last sisal grim reaper as I was walking up to the shelves. That I was five minutes too late, and ten steps too slow. I was walking so quickly that I might as well have been running, my heart hammering in my chest from nerves. And there was Cecil.
Maybe you’re thinking that it’s just a Halloween decoration. And okay, fair. But we went all out for Halloween when I was a kid. We would fill old clothes with leaves to make dummies, and we’d place them in strategic spots in our yard and hang them from trees. We’d painstakingly cover our bushes in spiderwebs, making our house look festive and creepy. Our house was the one where the whole soccer team carved pumpkins together, then went to a haunted house.
On Halloween, our costumes were elaborate and detailed, especially my sister’s. We’d make routes with our friends for trick or treating, planning in candy drops at our houses to keep our pillowcases light enough to run when necessary. Our dad would dress like the homemade dummies and sit perfectly still on our front porch, holding the big bowl of candy. If a trick or treater didn’t follow the directions on the sign taped to the bowl, my dad would suddenly shoot his arm forward and yell hey!, scaring the kids. Most of the time, they’d run away laughing after their initial fright.
It was our family favorite holiday. And it remained my sister’s favorite holiday until the day she died. She continued to love scary movies and planning a costume for months to get the details as right as possible. Nightmare Before Christmas was one of her favorite movies, and the year she dressed as Sally for Halloween was next level commitment. On her last Halloween, she died her hair black and got a few spots of hair dye on the bathroom wall. Two weeks later, that black spot on the wall was a reminder that Nicole existed. I touched it every day, every time I was at my parent’s house.
For years after she died, I could carve a pumpkin to bring to my sister’s grave, but I couldn’t really get into Halloween like we always had. It hurt too much. And for the years I lived in apartments, it was easy to just dabble a little in Halloween, if I felt like it. But the October I found Cecil was different. It was the first Halloween we actually lived in our house and would have trick or treaters. I wanted the perfect decoration. For Nicole.
Cecil reminds me of Jack Skellington, but if Jack were a ghost like Zero. That’s why I had to have him. I even bought him a skeleton dog named Bones in that first Target, a week before I took Cecil home. They’re best friends, a man and a dog. A ghost and a skeleton. And the two of them helped me learn to love Halloween again. One additional decoration at a time.
A few years ago, I didn’t get the Halloween decorations up until a few days before Halloween. Cecil, Bones, and also Lila didn’t get their usual month of feeling festive outside our house. Lila is Cecil’s sisal monster girlfriend. They met five years ago when my mom brought her over. So, when it was November and time to take down the Halloween decorations, I didn’t want to put my trio away, especially Cecil. My husband shrugged and told me to put a Santa hat on him and keep him out for Christmas.
That’s now tradition too. Today, Cecil will get his Santa hat while the Halloween decorations remain otherwise the same. In a day or two, Lila will get her tinsel garland scarf and Bones will get his holiday bow. Then a few days later, the rest of the Halloween decorations will be tucked away in their bin. It will be just the trio for a few weeks, waiting for Christmas.
Note: This is the latest I’ve ever been for my self-imposed Tuesday writing deadline. Sometimes, you have something written and when you go to press publish, it no longer seems like the right thing to share for the particular week you’re living in. That happened this week. Life is like that sometimes. And I will be back to Tuesdays next week.
