Special Post from Seawaters
I make notes all the time in my writer’s notebook where I keep track of words, phrases, memories that I want to refer to as I write for scrapbooks, journals, letters, etc. Amidst the rush to possibly see my son for the last time, I forgot where I put my writer’s notebook. Even though I did forget that, I did not forget what was in my heart.
For me, Christmas is a time for reminiscing, of bringing those memories to the forefront.
I once wrote to someone on MMC that traditions are a part of the glue that holds us together. They are not necessary, but they sure are comforting. If you ever find yourself at a point where you have to start over, don’t leave your traditions behind. They bring a sense of continuum to our lives, and they bring comfort to our children. The pain, though, is when one of those children is missing; it is also hard when one of the adults is missing. And it doesn’t even have to be that someone is missing. If a situation is so changed, that, too, can have a devastating effect. The thing is, we (have to) go on, no matter what. When my son was diagnosed with leukemia the day before Christmas Eve in 2007, I thought I would die. But life did go on. I was so subdued at Christmas, that I could hardly listen to Christmas music. Then I found out that keeping up that tradition was what helped me get through the holidays. At that point, I felt like all I was doing was “getting through.” Previous to that in 1999, my daughter had a stroke at 22 years of age. As a result, my granddaughter was born with cerebral palsy and had just gotten out of the hospital before Christmas. Twenty-two years earlier, my husband at the time, decided he didn’t want to be married; and he left when my daughter was three days old. Even though it was the first devastating thing to happen to me as an adult, it was also the thing that made me stronger. At the time, I couldn’t see that. But I carried on, on behalf of my children. There was really nothing else I could do. Then during Christmas 2011, I realized that I had cancer. It was scary, indeed, but nothing compared with those events that involved my children. I wish I had words of wisdom to share, but I do not. It is easy to say that time heals all wounds, and it does; but it doesn’t feel like it when you are going through a situation and when your heart is breaking, such as this past October when we found out my son’s cancer had returned as esophagus, colon, liver, and stomach cancer.
As a North Carolinian, I have always loved the writings of Thomas Wolfe from Asheville. Two of my favorite books by him are Look Homeward, Angel and You Can’t Go Home Again. Wolfe borrowed the title for You Can’t Go Home Again from a conversation he had with another writer. In the book, the main character realizes that "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."
I used to teach my students about “Makin’ Memories.” I don’t think they realized that when I told them my family stories that I was really reliving those memories as if it were yesterday. Some of the voices in those memories have been silenced, but they still ring true in my mind.
It sort of reminds me of what Walt Whitman wrote:
There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of
the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years….
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.
What will I be remembered for? What memories will I leave with my own kids and with my former students? Will they remember…? What memories will have become a part of me?
I constantly ask myself how did that time get to be so long ago? One evening during Christmas, I withdrew a picture from an old album, reminding me of those long-ago memories and reliving those scenes as if they were just happening. Throughout that evening, those memories paraded past my eyes and my heart.
Later, in the glow of the streetlight filtering through the open drapes, we all looked like ourselves again. Tootsie with a new perm, Tim wearing his cowboy gloves and sporting his toothy smile, Daryl grinning while holding his Hopalong Cassidy rifle, and Vickie without wrinkles or splashes of gray in her hair. I was holding the hand-me-down doll and the box in which my new Brownie had recently been nestled. Reluctantly, I opened the photo album and replaced the picture in its proper spot. I knew, God willing, I would do this again next Christmas, just to see if the ghosts of Christmas past would come and visit.
Signing off as usual: And thus, we have come full circle since last year, and so it is now…the beginning of the new Christmas season. God bless us, everyone!
