When Mickey Randleman walks this year's All Souls Procession, she knows she is not doing it alone.
As she prepares for the 20th anniversary of the procession, Randleman, 22, will be carrying a letter, a photo, and the memory of her late grandfather, James E. Thorn, who passed away last February as a result of emphysema, complicated by pneumonia.
She will also be wearing the dress she wore to his funeral.
"I have done the procession before and I really liked how it was a celebration, and it was festive," says Randleman. "This year, I'm looking forward to it, but it will be more solemn for me because I'll be walking in my grandfather's memory."
Like many others, Randleman will use the procession as a way to celebrate and remember a loved one who has passed, an action Dr. Karen McIntyre, a local therapist with the group Turning Points Therapy, says is both therapeutic and healing.
"In our culture we are very afraid of pain, and we do this thing where we try to avoid it and pretend its not there," says McIntyre. "This is a great way to help deal with it it helps people feel like they aren't alone in the depths of pain and loss."
McIntyre, who has lived in Tucson for the past 25 years, is a big supporter of the All Souls Procession and Dia de Los Muertos events and will similarly be remembering her loved ones who have passed on as she attends this year's event.
"I always bring a handful of things with me to put in the urn: what's important for me to let go of, hold onto, memorialize, experience," McIntyre says. "People really utilize this as a healing experience for them and I think its healing in a multitude of ways."
Randleman, too, will place something in the urn, which is filled with prayers, letters and personal items from procession attendees and burned at the grande finale as an offering to the spirits.
For her grandfather, it will be a pack of his favorite cigarettes.
"One last pack for grandpa," she says, laughing. "We were very close and he was a very important person to me, and I am remembering him and his life in celebration."
