It really does, doesn’t it?

Hey, you will be excited to hear that I did in fact get the Christmas lights up and everything decorated ’round these here parts.

I love that our Robert Weaver self portrait stares so intently at it like that. The tree is raised up on an old metal milk crate we snagged from the backyard of an abandoned house on the street- a detail that seems unnecessary now that I’ve typed it out. My point in mentioning it though is that all trees should be on a riser for proper room for presents to stack up vertically on each other instead of out sideways- I do this every year now.

I leave the lights on all the time (someone else in the house used to be the one to care about the electric bill) and the tree and lights bring me joy, something I was apprehensive about. It brings the same joy even, it just mixes in the paint pan of my soul differently, a bit muddy and darker now, than it used to be, and that’s acceptable, in the scheme of things. “No one gets out unscathed” doesn’t mean we all lose eyes or get bitchen’ scars before we die, oh no. It’s much, much worse than that.

What I wouldn’t kill for just an eyepatch.

But I am at peace with reality.

Back to the tree I need mention this part- that even before it was on a riser it was always tied back to the wall with fishing line- thanks to the absolute asshat cats we’ve always had.

For outside I made a new wreath with a Feliz Navidad sign I got at a craft fair my oldest’s gifted and talented program put on many a year ago, and some amaryllis. (Just looked it up and they symbolize love, beauty, and determination in Victorian flower language- I’ll take it. Better than poinsettias that mean “good cheer”). And I put lights and red Christmas balls on the branches I shoved in pot by the front door (my redbud tree is too heavy to bring up from the backyard on my own now, so I improvised. Plus the front door vine is still going strong and I didn’t want to cut it down yet.)

I then paid someone to put up the lights on the roofline, Lucas’s favorite- he spent so long finding the right bulb size and colors, custom ordering for white wires on the strings, and setting the pattern on them out himself. And that putting those lights up himself is not how Lucas died is going to be forever surprising to me. No way in hell I was crawling around on a metal roof to do it myself, now- that gets outsourced from here on out.

And then I put up the colored lights in the back, which has always been my addition to the lighting scheme.

And ever since putting them up it’s been raining pretty steadily, but oh well, I’ve still fit in a couple of beers here and there while sitting outside and enjoying them between storms.

Yes, I know that means you can see our names.

Back to the inside decorations: I expected having to be the one to put on the treetopper would be hard. It was.

I expected hanging all of the stockings would be sad, but it wasn’t. What joy to still be a family of 5, you know? That that is what we still are, and will always be, is such a great comfort to me. And to see it laid out like that really hammered it home, in the moment. Count it in the win column, an expected hard thing turning out to be a comfort.

Also a comfort was the last Grief Group meeting- that was really just a shared dinner, everyone brought something, and a great discussion of how far we have all come in our grief from the fist meeting. And we have. And friends were made along the way and leaned on when we needed it, and it helped get me through some of the darkest days. I am thankful to have had it, even if the real churchy messaging got a bit much towards the end. Not it’s fault- it is a religious based program, after all.

Some of the biggest help I found was from the discussion after the lessons themselves. One woman says she asks god to “Guard my heart” before she does something difficult. It became a bit of a mantra of the group, to ask for help from something we knew would be difficult- to guard our heart before an expected hard thing. So when I saw this wooden heart- it did kinda speak to me. (It was one of the ones I got myself, back in November.)

A very unusual heart- as the milagro charm is much larger than normal… and there is only one. They usually look like this other one of mine, and are covered in charms for the things you would like miracles or protection for.

I look at it and I think: yes, please guard it closely and I’ll take any miracles you got for my poor battered heart, Universe. And I think of my friend who said it originally, when I do.

In other news my youngest had her Christmas concert at the Wassailfest our town does downtown. The streets are closed to cars, all the Christmas lights are on, and the various shops hand out free wassail (a German hot apple drink).

Here she is spinning in front of one of the historic houses on the way to the stage where her school was singing. We then ate dinner together (oldest two were still down with Covid, so it was just us) and we ate in a restaurant where I told her that her dad and I often did date nights. (I didn’t tell her it was where we had our last date night, but it was.)

She then wanted to hear all about our first date- which I told her about. And the detail that her dad had asked me out once and I told him no originally made her throw back her head and laugh. I told her what I had in fact told him then: that if I was to date him I knew it would be serious, and I wasn’t ready for that. But I called him just a few days later and told him I changed my mind- and on the date we had that night he told me he was going to marry me and I told him that yes, he absolutely was.

Thinking back on that first date night, many a year ago, I realize that from that moment on we were together all the rest of the days of his life. This hits me as a comforting thought. That he was right, when he told me that- that he did totally marry me and me him, and that we made the very most of all our days together. That he was loved, and I got to be the lucky one to do it, for the rest of his life, from that singular moment on.

My daughter and I had a good dinner- she is a great talker, that one- so the conversation flowed easily. And we walked back through all the downtown Christmas lights and the cold wind to the car and it was peaceful out there, in the world, in the days leading up to Christmas.

Days later my aunt sends me a picture of me with my mom I’ve never seen before. And sure, in my head I went: “Thank you, this would have been really useful for her service 3 months ago…” but the part I said out loud was: “Thank you.”

I look at it and it reminds me of what my mom used to be like, before she was completely lost- though even then I can see a hint of lostness behind her eyes.

I look at young me and can hold her gently, that teenage self, and just think: it’s okay, you know, that this is your life. In the grand scheme of things, like in that ultimate tally, the plus column is still winning over the minus column. And I want to tell her that she has so, so much joy coming her way, and that it will still outweigh the heaviness she’ll have to slog through later.

She’ll be okay, somehow.

As will I.

As will we all.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to you.

And remember: