Kelli and I were over indulged from our first...
I remember one Christmas morning, Santa brought a new bike and new roller skates and a life size Snoopy dog and a Mickey Mouse watch, just for me...We were seven or eight. We weren't really surprised we got every thing on our lists, every single year...
My really musical parents started the Christmas carols as soon as Halloween was over...
I remember Mom practicing piano or organ endlessly for Handel's Messiah and my Dad playing carols on his guitar, Silent Night was his favourite. He made sure we knew every carol before we were in kindergarten.
Christmas was a happy time, even after my parents split up. Things were different, but still happy at Christmas...and we would soak up all the season had to offer.
I was asked last week, why I don't like Christmas?
"Well it's not that I don't like the baby Jesus part of Christmas.....It's that..."
And then I stammered to explain myself with a bunch of half excuses, not entirely sure myself....
Well then I found IT....
IT.... being a NEVER USED, 10 year old, obsolete camcorder....IT was at the bottom of our "electronics" bucket, that has moved with us at least 6 times...I thought IT was long gone but there IT was..IT....the last Christmas gift my Mom gave us.
A Camcorder was a generous gift at the time, especially considering her means....We were surprised when we got the unexpected package in the mail. Inside the box was a card, and in her shaky nearly illegible handwriting.....
I guess this is the only way I will ever see my grandchildren again.
Her anger and illness burned through those scribbled words. She still had not forgiven us for moving back to the Island just few months prior. I felt her anger, with little understanding of her illness then. Those words hurt and so did her gift. Mom spent that Christmas in care with out her daughters, alone.
Mom never saw her grandchildren again. That would be her last Christmas, she died weeks later and I never used that camcorder.
Even years later as I looked at that long lost camcorder, I cried and promptly threw it in the garbage can outside, grateful for garbage day.
Sadly we were not there for my dad's last Christmas either....
My sister had desperately tried, but Dad refused to get on his flight to Utah just hours before it took off. We were angry at him too, not knowing that we were seeing the final stages of dementia and not just his addictions...Dad spent his last Christmas in squalor, alone. The depth of which we would not understand till after his passing.
Struggling with Christmas ever since...
Something about this time of year makes me miss them more. Maybe its that I can hear my Dad's guitar every time I hear Silent Night...or Mom on the organ when I stand for the Alleluia Chorus...Or maybe its that we don't have the big family gatherings to go to, others do....
This time of year also brings some guilt...Guilt that we maybe could have made it different for my parents. If we had understood mom's mental health better or Dad's dementia maybe we could have done more...Why did we put up walls of protection instead of opening arms of understanding???
The only solace I have found (especially this crazy December) is helping those now, with the compassion and understanding, struggling with my parents has taught me. I could not change it for my Mom and Dad, but maybe, I can make a difference for someone here and now....with the lessons my parents have taught me.
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