Last year, I THINK I documented here how much I enjoyed Christmas for a change. I really did have a new lease on life and was enjoying all the positive changes weight loss had brought me. Hell, I became a regular Burl Ives having much "holly jollyness." One evening a couple of weeks before Christmas we (me and my bride) went to Starbucks, stocked up on coffee and drove around and looked at decorations. We took a Friday afternoon off and drove to our old stomping grounds (Stone Mountain, where we both grew up) and looked at the park all decorated up for the holidays. We shopped. We went to cantatas. We did Christmas.
Fast forward to now. It's just now November and there's already talk of Christmas plans, Christmas shows, Christmas gifts and some decorations are starting to pop up in stores and malls. Sadly, I just ain't feeling it. And it's not just Christmas...I'm not much looking forward to Thanksgiving, either. Why? Because I'm having trouble moving on from losing the woman that raised me.
I'm a 46 year-old grown man, for God's sake. I lost someone I loved. Grown folks grieve and move on. I reckon I'm not grown yet (like we didn't already know that!) But I'm not looking forward to cooking the Thanksgiving turkey and dressing she taught me to make. I'm not looking forward to family holiday time when she won't be there (remember my 'empty chair' discussion in my last blog.) I can't stand the thought of getting up Christmas morning and NOT going to the assisted living facility and picking her up for Christmas breakfast. I'm inclined to hibernate and ignore the day...kind of like I did back on Mother's Day.
Again, to go back to the point of my last blog, I think too much, I feel too much and I go backwards too much. She'd have a stern word for me if she knew I was having such a hard time leaving her behind. "Don't you worry about me...you take care of my sweet Rhonda and you take care of yourself. Pouting ain't doing you any good..." I can literally hear her voice uttering that admonition. I'll try Mama...I ain't making any promises, though.
1 comment:
I understand how you feel and I don't think you should be down on yourself at all. I lost my grandmother (who was really like a mother to me) a few days before Thanksgiving a couple years ago. To this day, a day doesn't go by where I don't think of her. I would cry the first year at all random occassions. Now, its gotten a bit better.
The one thing I try and do, and my suggestion to you, is to try and power through the Holidays and do the things your Mom taught you, things you know she loved. Yes, it is sad....but it is also sort of comforting, in a way connecting you with that person, albeit in spirit only.
good luck this holiday season. It will be hard, i'm not gonna lie..
http://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/17139/288.html
As you hold me close in memory,
even though we are apart,
my spirit will live on,
there within your heart....
I am with you always.
When you lean on trusted friends and their caring hugs enfold you,
within their loving arms,
I'll be there to hold you.....
I am with you always.
And beyond the far horizon
when we'll finally be together,
where love will be eternal
and life will last forever....
I am with you always.
~Author unknown~
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