Mari Rojas (right), with daughter Camila: "I just want her to learn her culture." Skeleton floats get ready for the parade. Sadie Rose doesn’t usually celebrate Día de los Muertos — but when Jack, her boyfriend of two years, died suddenly in June, she knew she had to find some way to honor him.So, with a candle and a framed picture in hand, Rose came out to Bregamos Community Theater with dozens of others to help mark the Day of the Dead.Rose joined those festivities on Saturday during Unidad Latina en Acción’s (ULA) annual parade commemorating the mortality-conscious Mexican holiday.“I would call him Jackie boy,” Rose said about her late boyfriend, who died of cardiac arrest. ​“And he called me Sadie girl.”The celebration at Bregamos Community Theater brought together members of the Latino community from the greater New Haven area — and beyond. Rose is from Los Angeles, and was in Danbury for a horror film shoot that she was working on. When she searched online for local Day of the Dead celebrations, ULA’s was the first that popped up.“So I said, ​‘Why not? I’ll come bring a picture of my Jackie boy,’” she said.Sadie Rose, with a picture of her "Jackie boy": "All we have is today." Inside the theater the Blatchley Avenue, Rose placed her picture and candle at the ofrenda, where observers had already placed their own pictures. Surrounding her were a couple dozen other attendees, some dressed in costume — a small child as a pumpkin, a woman as a bird. And in the background, cumbia music played, underscoring the chatter that grew louder as more people trickled into the room. Children and adults alike waited in line as two artists painted faces. As people left the line, their faces had been transformed, painted into skulls.Rose had chosen a photo of the two at a restaurant. She explained that in the picture, they were on the way back from their employer’s funeral. It’s her favorite picture of the two together, something she admits is ironic when comparing the context of the picture and the situation now. Still, she has the same photograph of Jack at her home altar because of how nice the two look. (“There’s not one bad picture of him.”) She’s decorated her home altar with his favorite sports teams’ paraphernalia — San Jose Sharks gear and a San Francisco Giants hat, the last hat he wore. Next to these items, Rose has a beaded bracelet, a shot glass, a love poem that he had written to her.Outside on the steps of Bregamos, Rose shared a memory that had surfaced, one in which she and Jack had traveled to Catalina Island together. There, they leisurely spent the entire day together and ended it watching the sun set. As the sun sunk lower into the ocean, she thought about how she wanted to spend her future with him. Rose pulled out a small urn with Jack’s ashes inside and pointed to the design — two chairs on a beach faced towards a setting sun. She explained the two chairs were for her and Jack.“When I walked in there, it’s like a celebration. They’re happy because we’re living for them now. Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean they’re out of our hearts. What I’m trying to take away from this is a sense of cathartic relief … Yes, they’re gone, but we’re here and we’re happy, and their soul is always going to be with us,” Rose said. ​“We’re not promised anything. We’re not promised tomorrow. We’re not promised the next day or whatever. All we have is today.”Across from Rose were the floats for the parade which would start later in the night. The largest one was a puppet of someone wearing a keffiyeh and a Palestinian flag, with the phrase reading: ​“ENDISRAELIAPARTHEID” and ​“FREEPALESTINE.” Posters advertising the event had the phrase ​“SOLIDARIDADCONELPUEBLOPALESTINO,” connecting this year’s celebration with the ongoing war in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of over 43,000 Palestinians.Artist Pablo Lopez, who became involved with ULA’s celebration eight years ago, noted that the decorations and the floats took two months to make, with a team of some 15 people. Lopez said that New Haven’s celebrations include these floats, but that every celebration of the Day of the Dead has different local interpretations. Lopez’s home of Guatemala, for example, uses kites as a symbol to offer prayers to their loved ones.For Mari Rojas, the day of remembrance is vitally important to pass onto her daughter Camila, who came with her on Saturday. The two live in Stratford, but said that the Spanish-speaking community there is distant. Coming to New Haven, Rojas can show her daughter the vibrant cultural offerings that the Latino community has. The two both wore bright marigold crowns on their heads. Rojas explained that the marigold is supposed to brighten the path from the world of the dead to the world of the living.“I just want her to learn her culture … What I’m trying to teach her is that we live in this country and for some reason, it’s a melting pot,” Rojas said. ​“In order to get along with others, you have to learn a little bit of their cultures to understand why they behave the way they behave.”The parade started at 6 p.m., and stretched around Clay Street to Grand Avenue then back to Blatchley. Click here to watch a recorded livestream of the parade.Scenes from ULA's Day of the Dead parade prep, at Bregamos.