Christmas

I’m scared, again. I keep reflecting back to C.S. Lewis’ book, “A Grief Observed” and recalling how he described grief as a feeling of fear. I know that fear. I am one with that fear.

Christmas Day went well. I had a lot of fun miling about with my and my father’s wife’s family. I especially enjoyed the company of my niece and nephew, two of the most loving people I have ever known. I didn’t know people aged thirteen and ten could be so wise beyond their years. They comfort me every moment I am with them.

My nephew approached me and whispered, “Auntie, I don’t mean to bring this up, but did Uncle Steven know Chris?” I said to him, “It’s okay if you bring it up, Sweetie. Did someone tell you not to?” He said, “No. I just don’t want to upset you.” I told him about the times that Steven (my brother) and Chris had met and thanked him for being so thoughtful and reitierated that he need not ever be afraid to talk to me about Chris, that I like talking about Chris.

Later in the evening, I was playing a made-up game, similar to Scrabble, with my ten year old niece. We were spelling words and she was making up the amout of points each of us were accruing as the game progressed. Of course she kept giving herself more points than me, but that’s a story for another day. With our limited amount of roughly seventeen letters, we managed to spell quite a few words. She spelled C-H-R-I-S and said to me, “Look Auntie. I spelled this for you. My heart snapped in two and I hugged her and thanked her, telling her that was just about the sweetest, most thoughtful thing anybody has ever done for me. I gave her 50 points.

Later on, she came over to the couch where I sat and said, “Auntie. You and Chris were the same. You joked all the time. You joked with each other all the time.” Once again, my heart broke out of sheer love for this little girl. Her remembering the way Chris and I interacted meant the world to me. We brought her joy and hopefully helped to teach her what love looks like.

At 6:00, I drove my brother, another member of my unbreakable support system, to the Amtrack station. He had come to visit and spend Christmas Eve with me and made my holiday beautiful and filled with love. My plan was to go home from there, but my mood began to sink and as I approached the intersection where I could either go straight home or turn left and return to my father’s house, I chose the latter and decided to stave off the grief which threatened to squelch my holiday lightness. The choice was the right one and in returning to my family, I gifted myself two more hours of love and comfort.

Everybody finallly broke up at around 9:30 and we went our separate ways. I knew that I would eventually be alone, and when I finally got there, I was crushed by despair, sinking to the floor (this seems to have become habitual for me) holding onto one of my kitchen chairs and weeping uncontrollably for the ensuing hour and a half. My heaving breakdown came with force that could crack ribs. I couldn’t move. I was too upset. I just sat there, all too aware that there was nobody there to console me. Not anymore. Who am I kidding? Creej was never very good at consoling me out of a tear fest. I have always been alone in that respect. I became despondent upon my return home to my empty apartment after having spent the day surrounded by people I love, and after having spent the past six Christmas nights with my beloved best friend and husband by my side.

Finallly, I managed to force myself to pick up my phone and “call for help” so to speak. I called my brother, whom I love, and talked with him about how I felt. My sadness makes him feel bad and I try not to do that to people these days, but he really knows what to say during times like that.

I don’t know where he got it. We weren’t even talking about blame, but he said to me, “It’s not his fault, Rob. It’s not your fault, either.” and opened the floodgates, freeing up all of the junk inside of me that was causing me all of the distress I was feeling.

I do feel at fault for what happened to Chris. How can that be? He got cancer. People don’t cause other people to have cancer unless they’re dumping radioactive waste near them. There’s a part of me that still feels as though I could have stopped it somehow. And there’s a part of me that feels like Chris is to blame. Logically, I know neither of those scenarios are true, but deep in my core I am so mad that I don’t get to be with him, anymore. I have to blame somebody and the only two possible people who could be responsible for his illness are the two of us.

I know thoughts like that are absurd, but grief is a process and this grief is MY process and I will handle it any way I choose and I don’t really care if I kick myself around in the process.

Anyway, that was Christmas.

It's Chanukah, today, and I had a pretty good day. I ran four miles this morning, primped, preened, shopped and had coffee with Carol at the Someday. I am on my way out the door this evening to sing at an open mike and I don't care if I'm tired at work tomorrow.

I am climbing back up the slope and creating joy in my life as best I can. At least, I'm trying to.

Shneed