Practicing Christmas Spirit: Day One

Last night, I found myself saying “This year, I am really going to make an effort to cultivate some Christmas Spirit.”  

With all of the loss in my life, holiday spirit seems a bit indulgent.  A good share of my heart wants to wallow in the idea that I can’t possibly celebrate when my daughter and my mother aren’t here.  Their death has removed any innocence from my experience of Christmas and the days that lead up to it.  For sure.

 

And death hangs anew over this season as a patriarch of my family is in hospice care and an aunt died just this week.

 

But still I yearn to celebrate.  I connect deeply with ancient people who, without artificial light, deeply needed some celebration in this darkest part of the year.  These winter holidays are borne of a deep-set human need to connect with light.  Perhaps, those of us who mourn can understand uniquely the fundamental need for comfort that the holidays, at their best, offer.

 

In the past, I have passively waited for the Christmas Spirit to descend on me.  I have enjoyed the decorations, sung a few carols, and been surprised when the holiday itself has left me a bit empty.

 

This year, I am going to go about it differently.   I don’t want sit back and see if this holiday will find me.  I want to claim this one.  So, for the next 25 days I am going to intentionally cultivate Christmas spirit.  Each day, from now until Christmas, I am going to do something everyday that brings me more deeply into the holidays.   Sort of a living Advent calendar.

 

I’ll report on my progress here, and I hope you’ll check back – and perhaps add your journey to mine. 

Thanksgiving

 

We are back in the desert for Thanksgiving; it is a tradition we have nurtured since Molly’s death and a comforting place to be.  We are surrounded by family, the beds are full to the point that some are sleeping on mattresses in the garage and the turkey is starting to fill the house with memories and warmth and anticipation.

We are fortunate, too, to have friends out here with us: friends who have known us for decades and have sustained us through the last several years.  As we gathered last night to drink wine and watch the sunset, we were all struck with the ways that the simple longevity of our relationships seems to bring the past into the present.  And as we made plans to visit again in a few months, the future crept in to our midst as well.

Time collapses.  We are so woven in to each other’s lives that we cannot separate ourselves from each other’s future victories and past losses.  There is comfort in that.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." - Albert Einstein

Yearning to Pray

 

 

 

I am aware of so many people who are really, really hurting this Thanksgiving:  the family of a young mom of 4 – including a 3 week old son – who died of a massive stroke last week; a couple whose unborn baby is struggling; Dad, who is approaching his first holiday season without his wife of over 50 years.  We could all add ourselves and countless others to the list.

 

All of our tragedies invite prayer.  And I have a deep and abiding sense that prayer makes a difference.  But I struggle with what authentic prayer is for me.  I understand the prayer that manifests itself as enthusiastic applause when a plane lands safely after a rough flight.  I know the tender prayer that is kissing a child goodnight. Gratitude seems to lend itself easily to prayer. 

 

But when people request prayer for specific outcomes  – be those requests for health or comfort or a car that will start – I find myself sadly confused.

 

Even as a child, I had trouble with the idea of praying for a cure, or praying for a miracle.  I could not then – and I cannot still – get my head around a God who is persuaded by human pleas to relieve suffering or postpone death in one family while allowing other families to endure unending  pain and loss.  God, it seems to me, does not play favorites. 

 

What I can get my head around is that we are all part of whatever God is.  Our life and God’s being are intimately related.  We never need to invite God’s presence; regardless of our circumstance, God is with us. 

 

Prayer, for me, then, is being mindful of that connection.  Prayer is holding an intention for a person in the same corner of my heart where God already is and finding gratitude for the bond that we share.  Prayer is a silent surrender to the sure belief that regardless of the individual circumstances of our lives, we are all loved equally and eternally.

 

And in that spirit, to whoever is reading this, I offer a prayer of gratitude and a wish for a warm and peaceful Thanksgiving.

Fixing Things. Or Not.

 

Okay.  I am at my wits end.

 

For the record:  I understand that my problems are relatively minor compared to 95% of the rest of the world’s problems.  I know that I should be grateful that many of my problems are fixable; after all, I am fond of saying that if a problem can be fixed with money, then it isn’t much of a problem.

 

It’s easy to say.

 

Frances had to buy a new car last week because her old one was totaled while her mother was driving it.  Our refrigerator just died, and since we weren’t home to tend to it in its final hours you can imagine the stench and mess that greeted us when we came home.

 

My car is acting up and it has 160,000 miles on it and I really don’t want to have to buy a new one.

 

As I see literally thousands of dollars slipping from our grasp in a week, at least I know that we are better off for having fixed things.  Oh that we could just offer up thousands of dollars to mend our hearts.

 

We are heading in to the first holiday season without my mom and her favorite holiday – by far – was Halloween. Our family gathered to bake cookies in her honor last weekend, and the mom-sized hole was a gaping wound that I hadn’t really understood was even there.

 

Frances is back to work after a week of being sick, and that’s wonderful, but I still have lingering concerns about her heath. My nephew has been out of school for almost a month with a concussion – which seems odd to me - and my niece is having some health issues too. So I am concerned for them and for my siblings.

 

A friend is going through a difficult break up.

 

I have too much homework to do for school.

 

Kids are mean to substitutes.

 

Some things aren’t fixable.

 

I know I am ranting. 

 

Thanks for reading.

Heavy on My Heart

 

 

I had to take Frances to to the emergency room this week.  The trip  was hellish.  She was miserable and throwing up and unable to walk, so that was terrible.  But I could have gotten over her symptoms.  The REAL problem, of course, is that it placed me back in a previous trip to the ER when I took Molly for a psych evaluation.  With Molly, we spent the better part of the day waiting to be seen and I was sort of hopeful that we would get a magic pill and all of her problems would go away.  Painfully, I know better now.  I know better.

 

This more recent trip was efficient (in that we were only there four hours), but every second was spent breathing the air of my past naiveté, re-living the fear that we felt as Molly failed and re-anticipating the loss that we ultimately endured.  Just too much.    

 

When neighbors came to visit Frances, who spent days immobile on the couch in our family room watching TV, different memories hovered.   My neighbor, who died last summer, spent the last six months of her life on her couch.  In her family room.  The connection was obvious to our visitors who had also visited her; our houses, after all, are basically the same.  With every visit, there was joy, but no doubt I was re-living the pain, the awkwardness and the stark loss of last summer.

 

Of course, since I spent two months of this year taking care of my dad after the accident that killed my mother, this more recent nurse maid role brought all of that back too.

 

Frances is actually getting better…. after a week away, she’s back to work, and her vertigo is evidently treatable.  I am still reeling.  I have been thrown back into memories that trigger mourning and ignite fear. 

 

After these last three and half years, I am no longer naïve.  I know that the worst that life can hand out will not pass me by.  Most days – most days – I can leave the burden of all of it in God’s hands.  But there are some days – and today is one of them - where there seems to be nowhere for the pain and the uncertainty of life except heavy on my own heart.   

Football and Crochet as Sacrament

Another death.  Not unexpected, but too soon.  A 47 year old woman.  Gifted nurse.  Cancer.  A ten year old child left behind and grieving parents who will bury their daughter.

 

We’re spending today with the family and the funeral is tomorrow. 

 

In some ways, it’s a privilege to be invited into such a scared space.  I hope that we can be present and encouraging as they begin to work their way through this loss that will redefine all of them forever. 

 

When all is said and done, I don’t think we are going to do too much; I have packed some crochet and I am sure the football games will be on.  I hear that a lot of food has been delivered. 

 

Can football and crochet be sacrament?   I think so.      Is God somehow in our births and our deaths and our carrying on?  Absolutely. 

 

Will this trip matter?   I pray it will.

Death Out of Order

 

This weekend, as I sat with a friend looking at photos of her 5 year old nephew who died last year after a lengthy cancer battle, there was no point to holding back the tears.   He will be mourned and remembered and celebrated by his family for generations.   For those who loved him,  there is nothing that will explain or make sense of his death.

 

And yet, the fact is that children do die.  Every day.  And so do young parents, and emerging geniuses, and insanely talented people who could make a difference for good in the world.   My mother used to tell me that the death rate, no matter what anybody says, is 100%.  For me, it is that certainty that life could end at any moment that makes it so very precious.

 

Those that have died too young, or with unfinished work, or before they had a chance to explore their talents offer a challenge to those of us who live: don’t waste a day; explore this world; take it in.  My daughter’s death is a challenge to offer the best I possibly can to the world on her behalf; my mother’s death is a constant reminder that my own death is a certainty. 

 

To say that I miss them does not begin to express my daily loss of their companionship, but it is also true that their deaths have increased their impact on my life.  Exponentially.  They live on in me, and where ever they have gone, I will be heading to in time.  Even the longest of lives is short.

 

Who knows?  I have no idea how life and death go together or how we are all connected to each other.  But I do know that death, especially death that seems out of order, offers a connection to eternity and a challenge to those of us who remain behind.  The challenge is beyond painful, perhaps some days beyond exploring, but somewhere in that challenge is everything – everything -  that makes life worth living.