As I've bustled about taking care of all the last minute chores around the house today, I've been thinking about Christmases past and present, especially present. I am still wound up from things that have been happening lately with someone, even though my pastor told me to just let it go. Its harder than it looks to just let it go. But, I confessed pride, which was the root of it all, and God forgave me, so I need to just let it go.
When Elisabeth was undergoing chemotherapy, Ro gave me a worry box. It was a tiny box, the size of a pill box, full of tiny little human figures, with one figure bigger than the rest. Every morning when I'd wake up, I'd open my eyes and for a minute, all was well with the world, and then I'd remember that my beautiful chubby miracle baby was looking like a skinny, wizened little gnome in the next room and that she might die. So, the worry box was good for me - I'd empty the figures out, and think of all the bad things in my life, one by one, and one by one I'd put a figure in the box. The last figure was Elisabeth's cancer... Into the box it would go, and I would do my best to just put all that out of my mind for the rest of the day. My motto was the same as Scarlett O'Hara's - I'll think about it tomorrow!. I had that first 10 or 15 minutes of the day in which I allowed myself to worry and to think of the worst thing that could happen, and the rest of the day I was determined to put it all out of my mind.
Maybe that's what I need now - a worry box. Just put all my cares and woes into the box and let them out for a minute or two in the morning. After all, there isn't anything I can do about the people in my life that are causing me such grief.
I guess I just really want to not care. But I do.
The one good thing about all of this is that its taken my mind off myself in a way - it *is* something else to think/obsess about, instead of missing my parents and how sad my ex is.
Isn't it really strange that I feel so RESPONSIBLE for all of this? Intellectually, I think I can see that I'm not - I didn't cause people to get obsessive and to blow the smallest things out of proportion. People make their own choices. So why do I feel responsible?
I've been thinking about this today....
And I've been remembering Christmases from long ago, when I was a child, and we lived on Shute Street. I remember walking the half block to Grammie's house which smelled like heaven from all the cooking... and how happy we all were and how much laughing everybody did. How young and beautiful everyone was. So many of my most beloved family is gone now: My mother, Grammie, Grampie, Auntie Anna, Auntie Nette.... George, Jerry... Joe Boy.... Uncle Nicky and Auntie Emily. Even Marie Cadigan next door. And Memiere and Pepiere. Everything and everyone has its season.
There's something about "home" that is so comforting. For me, home will always be that house on B Street. When I think of home, I'll always be about 10 years old, and Grammie will be rolling out pasta and squeezing me to death with her hugs, and Auntie Anna will still be stunning and shapely in her french twist at the sink, and Auntie Nettie will be dipping her folded-over toast in her tea while the pies bake, and my mother will be 47, younger than I am now, bustline around as my Grammie's pinchie. Ethel and Terry will be dancing together in the living room to their records, and Roseanne, beautiful, stunning Roseanne, will be primping in front of the mirror. And all will be right with the world.
And keep them in a place of verdure, where all sickness, sorrow and sighing have fled away....
Merry Christmas, Mama. I'm trying without you.
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