I am always with you, as long as you remember me

I just watched Pixar's Coco a few days back. It was a great movie about how we remember people after their demise. Our memory keeps them alive, and the final death occurs when we stop remembering them. Here, I would like to talk about the common folks' practice to keep the memory of the death going. For instance, all souls day and the day of the dead are acknowledged by most cultures. Brought up in a christian family, we observe the day too. But as I grew, I started questioning some practices and now that I....eerrmm...don't believe as I used to be, I start to recollect the origin of these practices. In the Hindu culture, the day before Diwali, prayers were offered to the dead and the ancestors. The same practice was implemented by the Chinese too. Although the method of practicing has much been commercialized, but the ultimate motive is as simple as remembering the dead, or to keep their memory alive. I may not practice the days in the future just as how my mom practiced it, with prayers and offerings. Instead, I am now thinking that I will observe the day in the future with a logical explanation. It will be a day to remember the dead, to reminisce on our days with them and to keep them alive in our memory. Most of the practices originated with a significant purpose. Unfortunately, with time and different cultural and religious practices, the original motive were diverted. 

The dead (memory) are always with us, as long as we remember them.