John passed away shortly after that. It’s been nearly three years now, and I haven't dressed up for Halloween since. Part of it is because I feel past the age when throwing on a slutty getup and hitting the most crowded party feels like peak fun. (Man, it used to be so fun.) But also, I know, it’s because I mourn John around Halloween, maybe even more than I do on his birthday or the day he died, which are only a few days apart. I think about him all the time; but when the weather starts to turn, and plastic pumpkins hit drugstore aisles, it’s as if he’s looking over my shoulder.

No one in my life embodied the spirit of Halloween like John did. He was devoted to it with the boldness of a little kid — one young enough to throw himself with abandon into playing make-believe, and not to give a shit what anyone thought. For most of us, this is a kind of fearlessness that fades with age. John was always a bit like Peter Pan to me in that way.

In recent years, I've hosted scary movie nights on Halloween — to mark the occasion in some way, and to be surrounded by friends while I shove my face with candy. But I haven't found the will to put on a costume and celebrate.

I needed time to sit with the idea that I'll never spend another Halloween with John. He was the first person I loved who died young. Mortality was no longer relegated to the realm of grandparents and zombie movies and secondhand stories; it had become something real and terrible and terrifying. Making light of it, in the way Halloween does, didn’t seem possible to me anymore. Nor did going all-out without John.

It would feel too neat and trite to conjure some poetic connection between the morbidity of John dying young and his devotion to Halloween. But I do know with certainty that he would love nothing more than for his friends to commemorate him with a spooky seance, or for his death to be the theme of a fabulous Halloween party. It would be just the kind of twisted thing he lived for.

If there's one thing that losing him has taught me, it's to shake off some of those inhibitions that adulthood brings, and give far fewer fucks. The truth of the hashtag had never hit so close to home: You only live once. Maybe he understood it all along.

So this year, I'm back on the market for a costume. It probably definitely won't be hand-sewn, or anywhere near as contest-worthy as what John would have chosen. But I will wear it onto a macabre dance floor, look up at the lights, and hold him in my heart — knowing he’d love how fucking silly I look.