Christmas Eve.
All six of our kids plus Dan's mom Zoomed as our holiday event an hour ago. Brigham's stepsons provided the music: Jack played carols and Nu er det jul igen on his saxophone. Colin marched across the living room while playing his trombone: "London Bridges" with a solid slide at the end.
We opened small gifts, including what has become a 3-year tradition: my kids made a calendar with photos from the past year, including:
Max and Stuart on the NZ beach, January 2020
Palmer with her Unified basketball team
Brigham and two cats peeking from the window
Cameron marching in a BLM protest
Stuart climbing with Robin
Harrison and dog Waylon in the corn
Eloise and Mia welcoming John home from deployment
Palmer and Dan riding (masked) in the pickup
WOLF! in his daddy's arms
Harvest under #IowaSky
Brigham delivering groceries to food-insecure Cass County households in masked front-door drops
Eloise's dog Mia wearing a snazzy sweater
Wolf sitting in his Bumbo
Stuart with his dog Nali after limiting on pheasants
Precious Wolf
As we closed out of Zoom and I hung the 2021 calendar on the wall, I told Dan how much I love my dear and beautiful children. He grunted in a way that I'll accept as agreement.
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Holidays are always imperfect. Actually, all our days are imperfect. But we hold holidays up to impossible expectations.
Earlier today as I talked to Palmer about this, I recalled the Christmas of 1994. Dan and I were in the balcony (because we arrived late) for the Christmas Eve church service with our children ages 9, 7, 4, 2, 3 months and 3 months.
I only remember flashed images: several children melting in hot and itchy sweaters on the pews; Dan hissing that we needed to leave NOW; me burning with fury as I insisted we would NOT leave (DAMN IT!) until we'd experienced the candle-lit "Silent Night" that signified full Christmas Eve SUCCESS.
We endured. I got my God-forsaken service. I hated everyone.
Five months later I told my family physician I was losing it. He patronized me, telling me to get some exercise.
In retrospect, I'm angry he didn't hear my cry for help. It took another 10 years before a (female!) physician recognized what I was saying: I was depressed, and it expressed itself in uncontrolled irritably.
One thing positive that came out of the initial misdiagnosis was that I took lessons and learned to swim.
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Life does an awful job at foreshadowing, but it offers interesting opportunities to look back and identify themes and connecting plot lines.
Enough.
Be well.
Write.
And Merry Christmas.
Allison
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