Death
Our kid: Why did Grandma Shirley die?
Me: She had a bad boo-boo in her tummy.
Our kid: What did she say?
Me: ‘Oh, no, I have a bad boo-boo in my tummy’
Our kid: What did you say?
Me: I was sad.
Our kid: What did you say when she died?
Me: I was very sad.
Our kid: Did you cry?
Me: Yes.
Our kid: What did Mommy say?
Me: She was sad.
Our kid: Did she cry?
Me: Yes.
Our kid: What did Grandpa Shirley say?
Me: He was sad.
Our kid: Did he cry?
Me: Yes.
Our kid: What did Grandma Shirley say?
Me: .....she didn’t say anything.
Our kid: Why?
Me: Because she had died.
Our kid: Why did she die?
Our kid likes to talk about death. She started asking about my mother’s death a few months ago. I teared up the first time it happened. Other times, I can’t help but chuckle, especially when it gets circular the way the above sample does. She doesn’t understand the concept of death and the other day we had a conversation about my bike light’s ‘death’.
Christmas
As a child, like many children, I liked Christmas. I think kids like the flashiness of it and the gifts. As I got older, I liked Christmas less and less. For one, I don’t care much for flash, but I also grew to see 25th December, not as Christmas, but as my mother’s birthday. I always felt she got a raw deal because, other than her immediate family, no one cared about her birthday because it was her birthday; they cared about it because it was Christmas Day.
As an adult, I focused more on my mother’s birthday than Christmas. I stopped wanting any kind of gifts for myself. It got to the point where the only gift I would get for someone in December, would be my mother’s birthday gift. Christmas became this thing that happened to be on my mother’s birthday, not my mother’s birthday happening to be on Christmas.
Life
My mother’s birthday in 2009 was the worst 25th December I’ve had. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer a couple of months earlier and I knew she wouldn’t make it her birthday in 2010. I was in California, nursing a cat that had just had surgery that cost me a month’s salary. My mother was on the other side of the country, in Maryland. She would only make it a few more months.
The only thing I remember of my mother’s birthday in 2010 was walking along a sidewalk in Mesa, Arizona, by myself, in tears. I remember nothing else of that day. I’ve dreaded 25th December in the years that followed.
I’m looking for a word that is close to ‘hate’, but not quite there. That’s how I’ve felt about Christmas for the past several years. It all reminds me of my mother. Because of this, I’ve disliked decorations, lights, any kind of Christmas event where people gather. The only people I want to spend time with in recent Decembers have been my family.
When someone is alive, you don’t realize just how and what their death will affect in your life. I became Mr. Anti-Christmas after my mother died. I didn’t want to be that guy, but there I was, looking forward to January, not for the new year, but for all the decorations to be put away and the celebrations to be over.
Now I’m at a stage where our kid likes Christmas. We have gone to the Edinburgh Christmas Festival (I’m not sure the official name, but that’s what we call it in our house) multiple times. She really likes Christmas trees and cards and decorations. I’ve had to change my tone a bit about Christmas.
For the sake of our kid, who was born exactly 29 months after my mother died, who seems to want to talk about my mother’s death so much, I have to separate my mother’s birth and Christmas.
It’s hard. But I’m trying.
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