Late summer 2012, a South Carolinian man drove across several states to Michigan’s Motor City, where the car show of all car shows offered him a chance to show off his passion: A 1979 Buick Electra 225 Limited Edition with a 350 engine and four-barrel carburetor whose throaty yowl could rattle flagpoles on the moon.

Drawn by the Woodward Dream Cruise, Detroit’s annual classic car parade, he parked his hot rod somewhere presumably safe — a Kroger’s parking lot — while he went about his business preparing to wow his fellow car nuts.

Later that night, an attentive thief spotted the car, broke in, and deployed some All-American automotive ingenuity to fire up the Super Sedan — one reminiscent of an early 80s action movie where cops wear rumpled suits, sleep in trailers, bust their knuckles every third scene and ask too few questions, yet always get their man. Our bandit likely made it all the way back to his Chop Shop full of greasy thugs and cigarette ash before he found the powder in the trunk.

Here I imagine a young man in baggy, ass-embroidered jeans, maybe a pair of reflective sunglasses perched on the bill of his flat-brimmed hat, as he opens the trunk. Immediately, he spots the strange container set precisely in the middle of the coffin-sized space, and part of him rejoices: Got the car; got the cool pants; and now I got whatever the hell this is.

He leans in, grabs hold of the black plastic box and holds it close to him like some decrepit relic of the Gods. Swiping the nearby table clean of bottles and ashtrays with his left arm, he sets the box down, eyes gleaming as he breaks the plastic seal to find the bag inside. Using the army-issue pocket knife he stole from his late uncle three years ago, he cuts through the plastic and pulls a blade full of the stuff out for examination. It’s light gray, almost white, and has no smell.

Shrugging, this future kingpin bangs his knife on the table and uses his expired library card to scrape the duff into a long, jagged line.

Honestly, I’m not sure if snorting someone else’s Grandpa would kill a man, but it certainly wouldn’t help settle his karmic accounts. And Grandpa, curmudegon that he was, would find a way to get even, use some of the moves he learned in the Korean War to clog our thief’s sinuses or wriggle through the membrane trenches to infiltrate his brain case and wreak sabotage. Grandpa always was a badass, and even in death he’d find a way to defend himself.

But who knows what really happened to Grandpa? Our Southern friend had collected his progenitor’s remains with all appropriate intentions, had even set out to find another family member with whom he could share the sacred rite of dispersing the old man’s itty bits. Yet as is common in these days of rush-hour living, one thing led to several others, and soon Grandpa took up a somewhat permanent residency between the spare tire and the emergency flares in said trunk.

Here’s where this story becomes relevant: Today is the last day of the 72-hour holiday known as The Day of the Dead. In most of Mexico, Nov. 1 is set aside to honor children who have passed, while adults are honored on Nov. 2. At Sunrise Cemetery in Fortuna, several graves are festooned with flowers and skulls, garlands and signs that honor dead loved ones who found their final refuge in our fields.

Not everyone is so lucky.

One culture honors the dead with explosive colors, soft petals, and even a few hand-written notes tucked under vases and lingering trinkets. Another pushes people so hard and fast that in their rush to get from here to there, then to now, they’ll even forget to honor an ancestor’s last request.

Our car buff isn’t alone in this: In the dead-person business, I’ve heard stories of repeated neglect, where the dead stay stowed in a closet, under the bed, on top of the ancient refrigerator in the garage, or in a coffee can under the porch, while family members tell themselves someday, when they find the time, they’ll set the dead folks free.

This reality is not how most of us envision that last formal goodbye, that send-off we asked of our lovers and friends.

Bury me next to Mom, or Dad, or with the love of my life. Scatter me at sea. Drop me from an airplane over the Eel River. Plant me in a flowerbed, or under a tree. Let the wind take what’s long been together and rip it wildly apart.

To honor this Day(s) of the Dead, I encourage everyone to scrape what’s left of Uncle Ted out of the leaky plastic box he’s in, set him up in a brand-new Nike shoebox, take a long walk somewhere he was happy, and with a smile and a flourish, set him free.

In the end it makes no difference to Ted, but when that free and reflective moment you’re waiting for arrives, you’ll be the one who can finally rest in peace.

James Faulk is a writer, family man and cemetery worker. You can reach him at faulk.james@yahoo.com