Believe me, I write these words mostly to myself because I need to hear them. However, I knew going in to this Christmas season that it was going to be difficult. I knew things would not feel the same without my father. Even with knowing all of those things, I was still not prepared for how raw and emotional I was (and still am) going to be. I was not prepared for how emotional my kids would be. I expected it of my Mom, even though she keeps her pain close to herself and does not often let others see.
I wanted to prepare myself. I decided that I would start my own little family tradition. On Christmas Eve it was going to be only myself and my little family. So, I decided that I would allow my children to open two gifts. One was their present from their Grandma Jan, who is their father's mother. The other was from me and part of my new tradition. I gave them each a brand new pair of pajamas.
I planned the evening out. I planned the menu. I planned the order of things. I did not plan for variables. And the variables are where things fell apart. I had to work part of the day on Christmas Eve and I had to write a final paper for my Grad school class. That adds a lot of stress. Two of my children had been battling H1N1 all week and were still recovering. Princess had been sleeping off and on most of the day, waking up between the fevers and to cough. By the time I was ready to take all of us out to the service, she came upstairs and told me that she was feeling dizzy and was so tired. She proceeded to crawl into bed. The boys and I went ahead to church.
It was lovely and I managed to keep my annoyance at their "When is this over?" questions to a very low level. It did help to hand Pumpkin-head the bulletin so he could follow the order of service. And I do think that we enjoyed ourselves. When it was over, BB said, "You know, that was not that bad. I kind of liked it."
Back at home, I woke up Princess and suggested she get in the shower while I finished putting things together for our simple, no fuss dinner of crackers and cheese. I lit the candles on my mantle and set the ambiance. It looked so nice. I went in search of my camera, which Peanut had been using earlier, and could not find it. He looked but still has such short term memory and the attention span of a housefly, he gave up quickly.
I fell apart. I may have said something to the effect of, "Well, since none of you seem to care a bit at all about helping me find this camera so we can start our family Christmas, I may as well cancel it all and go to bed." And in a flood of tears, I ran upstairs. I continued to look, tears filling my eyes til I could not see any more. And I found myself muttering unkind things involving just about every person in my family. I groaned about how a silly purple camera was ruining my plans for a sweet, family Christmas. While sitting on the floor of my closet, it hit me.
It had nothing to do with perfect plans or purple cameras. It had nothing to do with my perceptions of insensitive people who cared more about their own stuff than the needs of others. This was grief. My heart was hurting. Christmas was not going to be perfect. No amount of planning or preparation was going to fix the pain I felt. Making sure that my kids were happy and content was not going to keep them from hurting. I could not plan away the sorrow and by pretending that I could, all I was doing was shoving it under the rug and pretending that the big lump sticking up wasn't there.
What I needed...what I wanted more than anything, was to have my Dad here. I wanted to go downstairs and see him sitting in my big brown chair with Peanut curled up in that little nook by his hip while they chatted about 7 year old secrets. I wanted to be able to go down, and as much as I would hate it, I wanted to smell the cigarette butts in my trashcan. I wanted to see his mug of coffee on my table. I wanted to hear his voice as he talked to my kids. I wanted him here and he was not.
Once I realized that THIS was what all of this freak-out was about, I was able to pull myself together. I wiped away the tears and saw my silly camera sitting on the floor by my window. I went downstairs and told the kids I was sorry for yelling at them but I was better now and we could start. The rest of the evening was fine. I enjoyed watching them open their two presents more than I have ever enjoyed it. We sat together and watched a silly movie in our pajamas eating crackers and cheese. We laughed and it hit me that I had indeed created a memory, minus the meltdown.
Christmas Day...a whole other story. So, lets just say:
To be continued...
