Every year since she was old enough to hold a marker in her small hand, they had carved pumpkins together. She would draw shapes all over the pumpkin’s face, holding the Sharpie tightly in her fist. Then Dad would cut a hexagon on the top around the stem and they would reach their hands in together and pull the goopy guts out from the pumpkin. One year she threw a clump at his face. Another year she placed some on her head. When she got older they would separate the seeds from the goop, lay them out on a baking sheet and slip them in the oven to make roasted pumpkin seeds.
After the insides were sufficiently cleared out, she would stab at the pumpkin’s outsides with her small kid’s knife. After she got tired, he would pick up the real sharp kitchen knife and do his best to follow her marks and cut out whatever face she had so artfully designed. Then they would go to Mom for some small tea candles and place them at the bottom of the inside of the pumpkins.
She got so excited the first year she was big enough to carry the pumpkin to the front stoop all by herself. She wasn’t allowed to light the candle though. Dad would reach his hands in and click the lighter and bring the jack-o’-lanterns to life. She and Dad would sit in the grass and watch the lights from the candles flicker. The jack-o’-lanterns expressions changed as the wind blew, the light illuminating it from within dancing from side to side. Dad would voiceover their two pumpkins, making up stories in which the two faces spoke to each other.
Dad’s pumpkin was usually beautifully carved, sometimes with arched eyebrows or crooked teeth or mischievous eyes. Her pumpkin was always a little bit more abstract, triangles and circles placed haphazardly. You had to squint to make out the face. But Dad always said her pumpkin was amazing. That it captured the essence of the character perfectly.
After a week or so, the faces would begin to crumple. Dad said their time was running out. The voices would sing Happy Birthday to her then say goodbye and she would take a deep breath and blow out the candles and the next morning on November 1 when she woke up they would be gone, not even a circle of pumpkin goop left to be found on the front door stoop. But by then she should be so excited to celebrate her birthday and eat all the candy that she had collected the evening before that she would forget all about her pumpkin faces. And so went the life cycle of the jack-o’-lantern.
You honored the jack o' lantern splendidly!