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I've got the bowl of candy by the door, and a bowl almost as big on the counter in the kitchen. The water is boiling, and it's almost time to put the pasta in the pot. The phone rings, and it's my mom.
"Any trick-or-treaters yet?" she asks.
"Not yet, I'm making spaghetti now," I answer.
"Yeah, I've got mine ready over here, too," she replies.
My whole family makes spaghetti on Halloween. Its a tradition my grandmother started years ago, and now that she's gone, we all do it. It wasn't even an ethnic thing, because she wasn't Italian. It was just something she did, year in and year out. Now its a way of remembering her, and of appreciating the way she always kept the family together. Even though all of us are older and spread out now, Halloween spaghetti is something that always reminds us of family and good times.

I asked my mom once if she knew how the tradition got started, and she said maybe it was the easiest meal to make with all of us grandkids running in and out. We'd come over after school and get on our costumes, trick-or-treat on her street and then come and eat before going back out to hit the next few blocks. Since my grandmother passed away, we've carried on the tradition in our own homes.
My grandmother also had believed in the European tradition of leaving food out on the nights of holidays, often called a "dumb supper", where the spirits of family and friends were said to return to the earth, and to leave them food was a way of honoring them. After everyone has eaten spaghetti to their heart's content on Halloween, the time of year that many, many cultures believe that spirits can return, I do it, too.
That way, if spirits can return, my grandmother can still have her Halloween spaghetti. Maybe one of these years she'll leave me a little message as to what ever made her start to make it on Halloween in the first place.

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