Practicing Christmas Spirit: Devastating Loss

I  subbed in a  kindergarten classroom this week. I am a mother who left her child’s body in a school. I am the parent of a child who suffered with mental illness and know how nearly impossible the diseases can be to correctly deal with. I am in public schools almost daily and the prospect of a school shooting is always in the back of my mind. My sister lives not far from Newtown, CT and her kids were in lockdown yesterday.

 

 

The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, while not a personal loss for me, has left me in tears with fresh wounds and raw emotions.

 

It is Christmas.  I had planned to bake cookies today, and to finish decorating our tree.  If only to force myself to break away from the TV coverage, I followed through with the plan.  

 

The cookies, from my Great Grandmother’s recipe, were a life-long favorite of my mother’s, so I was making them partially to honor both of them.  As I rolled out the dough and cut the cookies out, re-living fun childhood Christmases doing the exact same thing and fragile from the coverage of the school shooting, my personal losses were tangibly present.  As I cried over the growing pile of baked trees, stars and snowmen, the smell alone was more pain that I wanted to bear.

 

And then decorating the tree.  Good God, what was I thinking.  Every ornament a memory.  Baby’s First Christmas, given to me by my Dad’s mom.  Molly’s arts and crafts ornaments.  Fond memories from vacations.  Some millennium  ornaments.   A New York skyline ornament that includes the Twin Towers.  Some incredible hand made pieces that my mom crafted.   I wouldn’t part with one of them; but I cried as I hung them on the tree.  Each one, initially selected to cement joyful memories, proclaimed a  loss.

 

Today I mourned.  For myself.  For the families in CT.  For all of us who are dealing with devastating pain.  And I reminded myself of a bitter Christmas reality: there is always loss in this holiday.  Surely, the Biblical stories don’t shy away from pain (see Matthew 2: 16 – 18 for an example.)  But in our time, too, we know that the peace and hope of the Christmas season exists squarely in the darkness and challenge of our own lives. 

 

The past comes to live in the present through memories, recipes and ornaments.  It’s not enough.  I want my child back.  But today in particular, I am convinced that mourning and celebrating are part and parcel of the same thing: an awareness that our short lives will hold both devastating loss and unspeakable joy.  The peace comes, sometimes, from recognizing the one in the other.

Practicing Chirstmas Spirit: Playing Hooky

 

I am playing hooky tomorrow.  I took myself out of substitute teacher circulation and will not be going to work.  This is a somewhat remarkable occasion; whatever else I am,  I am not a hooky playing kind of person.  I don’t know that I cut even one class in high school.  (But if I had, it would have been PE…..)
 

So, tomorrow is mine.  The plan is to do the final gift shopping, maybe even throwing in a gift or two for myself.  It’s the middle of the week, and I am hoping the stores and the parking lots won’t be gorged full and the store personnel will still be holding on to at least a sliver of holiday spirit.  If there is time, I’ll wrap presents too and maybe even have some hot chocolate (with Bailey’s!) by the fire.
 

But mostly, I will enjoy a brief sense of minor control over my own life.  When death has touched my life, it has been sudden and unexpected.  I know what it is to have life spiral out of control in an instant and I have been taught – brutally – that in most ways I am not in charge of things.  This second half of my life will surely have me practicing adjusting the sails more than futilely attempting to direct the wind. 
 

But that doesn’t mean I don’t control ANTHING!   Yes, the list of things over which I am powerless is infinite.  But tomorrow is a day to remind myself that there are a few things (like how I spend some of my time and how I take care of myself) that I can (and should!) control.  Let the hooky playing begin! 

Practicing Christmas Spirit: Planting Bulbs

When Molly died, a friend came to the house and planted literally 100s of bulbs as a memorial to her, and every year, he gives us more bulbs to add to the collection.  This year we added purple hyacinth.

Planting the bulbs is a bittersweet task: kneeling on the ground, burying the bulbs, hoping a miraculous transformation will take place in just a few months.  It’s also usually brutally cold this time of year, but the earth is spongy today in a springy sort of way that contradicts the fact that it is December in a part of the world that really should be frozen.

So, this morning, I planted bulbs.  And I immersed myself in memories of Molly and Mom and looked forward to the flowers that will bloom in the spring.  If the holidays celebrate hope and miracles and the idea that somehow God is always with us, then planting something – anything – expresses a holiday truth with candor seldom found in the carols, the cookies or the gift wrapped boxes.

Practicing Christmas Spirit: The Blog

Those of you who have visited this blog before may notice that I have been playing around with the template.  Oh yes.  The template.   It is a victory of sorts to have a clue about the word means.  Since I am writing mostly about the holidays for the next few weeks, I wanted my blog to take on a festive feel, and it turns out that the way to change the feel of the blog is through the  - say it with me – template.
 

When in doubt, Google.  That is my theory.  I have asked Google everything.  I have asked it why my daughter took her life.  I have asked it when my cousin, who is on life support right now, will die.  Having proven itself reliable in so many ways, I occasionally forget that Google is not a fortune teller or even a child’s Magic 8 Ball.
 

Turns out, though, that Google is quite reliable when it comes to blogger templates.  I was able to read about them and successfully download a few; I  even applied a couple of templates to my blog as a test, but for the most part, I found my downloaded attempts too “custey” or sentimental. 



I am not trying to cultivate a Christmas spirit of elves and Ho HO HOs (although I will make room for all of that if the occasion presents itself.)  No, I am looking for the grungier side of the holidays; the “light in the darkness” side where the light is surely – but barely – peeking through.

 

So, here’s to the holiday spirit that is just getting by – floundering a bit.  And here is to tending even the most fragile light. 

Practicing Christmas Spirit: Fixing the Watch

 

 

I have undeveloped consumer taste so I am not the best present giver.  Generally my gift giving strategy tends to boil down to a) something I would like; or b) something I think the other person should like.  This is not to be confused with carefully selected items based on observation of the receiver’s habits, recent purchases, style, etc…

 

Using my gift-giving strategy, I gave my mother an Anne Klein watch one year for Christmas.  Came in a box.  Included several discs to change the color on the perimeter of the face.  Was a name brand.  (I think.  Isn’t Anne Klein sort of a fashion statement?)

 

My mother, trust me, did not like it.   She wore it most every time she saw me, though, and it was in her drawer when my sister and I went through her things after she died.  The watch battery was drained, and the navy colored fashion disc was missing, but otherwise, it was in good shape.  So I claimed it back – not unlike the way you can claim gifts back in some of those dreadful office party Secret Santa games.

 

Now that the watch is mine, I understand why Mom didn’t love it.  It’s too big for one thing.   And without the navy disc, it has limited fashion use.  But in my quest to cultivate holiday spirit, I went out today had the watch battery replaced.

 

Love it.  Yes, it’s a little awkward because of the size.  But my mother used it it symbolize her love for me, and now that it is working and in tip-top shape, I won’t be able to look at it without reflecting on my love for her.

 

I’ll wear the red disc on Christmas.  Mom would like that.

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