It is Halloween night and I am getting ready for the big show. We will have a river of children at the door. Year after year the expectations rise, and in our neighborhood that turns into a sort of friendly competition. Lights. Fog. Laughter. The tiny gasps that are not quite fear and not quite delight. We plan for this night the way some people plan for a long voyage.
This year is the haunted bayou. Spanish moss over sagging branches. A wooden skiff that looks untrustworthy on purpose. Lanterns that flicker like they have opinions. I am dressing as a voodoo priest, and the backyard has been transformed into a swamp that never was and always will be. It is playful. It is a little eerie. It is also a sincere nod to something we once learned on a family trip.
We visited Lafayette a while back to do some research on my wife’s family. That trip became a small turning point. By happenstance we met a woman who was distantly related to us. She did not announce herself with ceremony. She just started talking, and her words rearranged the evening. She described herself as a keeper of prayer. It had been handed down from mother to daughter for generations. Each daughter added a single line, a careful phrase that carried some quality of her life. The prayer had a rhythm like a chant. It contained their names. Their stories. Their longing for the people who would come after them.
There were no costumes in that conversation. No fog machines. Yet there was a feeling like a door had opened. Imagine a thread sewn through time, each stitch made by a pair of steady hands. That is what the prayer was. The family sought out people like her when they needed a certain property from that tradition. Strength in illness. Patience in conflict. Clarity when the road turned. Nothing about it felt transactional. It felt like responsibility. She had memorized a piece of each ancestor and carried them close, not as museum pieces but as living tools.
Tonight I can hear that woman in the back of my mind as I adjust the lanterns and test the sound of the water pump. I want the set to be fun for the children. I also want it to be true to something real. A swamp is a place that holds everything at once. Life. Decay. Fog that blurs what you think you know. In that way it mirrors the way our families live inside us. We hold memories we did not earn. We carry burdens that do not belong to us. We receive gifts we did not ask for. We add a line of our own.
The thought humbles me. A prayer that grows by one line with each generation is not a superstition. It is a discipline of memory. It asks a question every parent understands. What am I putting into the stream that will push or pull the children who come after me. When we add to the prayer, we are saying, I was here. I stood my watch. I learned a thing or two. Here is what I can give you.
So I look at our haunted bayou and it becomes a quiet reminder. The props will be packed up tomorrow. The fog will drift away. The skiff will go back to storage. What should remain is the line I added. The words I chose. The small acts that say to my family, you are not alone in this. I am part of your prayer.
A practical note rises in my mind as the doorbell rings again. The traditions that change us are the ones we practice. We do not need a holiday to do this. We can start with a simple ritual. A sentence at dinner that we all repeat. A phrase we write at the top of a journal page before the day begins. A weekly note to a child or a parent. Small gestures become currents, and currents shape a river.
Tonight the river flows down our street in costumes and bright smiles. I will hand out candy and watch their faces. Somewhere in the noise I will say the prayer I am building, one line at a time. I will remember the woman who carried her family like a lantern and lit the path for us all.
And when the last light goes out, I hope the quiet that follows sounds like gratitude. The bayou will be gone, but the water will still be moving.
