As a working mother, if I'm not feeling guilty about what I'm not getting done at work, I'm feeling guilty about not making the holidays picture perfect for my family. Damned if you do...well you know the rest. I'd like to say I'm chucking it all this year and not going to worry about it but that would add lying to my growing list of bad qualities.
This holiday season feels a bit off and I know that is due to missing Mom. She loved Christmas and decorating and shopping...especially shopping. Fortunately or not, her daughters did not inherit her love of the chase. If Patti, Sandi and I could do all our shopping online we would. I think Mom burned us out on shopping years ago. Her favorite catch phrase when we were kids was "Try this one on for me...please?" Ugh.
However, she had the rare talent of finding the absolutely perfect present and she could be a great listener when she wanted to be. After opening your gift and exclaiming "How did you know I wanted this?" she would say "Well remember when we had that conversation and you mentioned..."
Mom loved coats. I bet she had a dozen different coats at any given time. Patti and I each have at least four that she bought for herself but ended up giving to one of us over the years. She'd say, "Oh take it, it looks so much better on you!" I have a black leather coat that she used to wear all the time and early in the season, I reached into the pocket and found her trademark pink Kleenex. Babe was always prepared with the Kleenex! When I pulled it out I caught my breath and started to tear up. I looked at it for a moment and then gently slid it back in. I knew it was slightly weird to keep my mother's Kleenex in my pocket but I just couldn't throw it away.
Last night before Patti, Bridget, Jeff and I went to see Movin' Out with our friends Dave and Barbara, Patti reached into her coat (not surprisingly it was originally Mom's) and said sheepishly "Look what I found in my coat." She opened her hand to reveal, you guessed it, pink Kleenex. She's been carrying her pink Kleenex around for months too. Sisters.
Memories. Grief. Hope. Friendship. Beginnings. Stress. Snow. It's December. Hang in there.
4 comments:
Made me cry.
Everything makes me cry these days. While I have no coat or pink Kleenex, I have been wearing the half a dozen winter sweaters that Mother bought for me over the years and thinking of her each time I put one one.
I dread my upcoming birthday (more than usual). It will be the second year that I do not get the early morning call from Mom, no matter where I am living, wanting to be the first to wish me Happy Birthday.
I don't have the kleenex, but I have little reminders of Babe all over my house. I took out a small Christmas tree with pearls and a sled that Babe had given me. The two small lamps in my living room are constant reminders (especially the one I have in the window). I miss her and somehow I feel that would make her very happy.
I cried when I read about the kleenex.
Mom would LOVE it that we think about her so much!! And that we carry around shredded Kleenex in the pockets of our coats because we can't bear to throw them away.
I figured out why the holidays are so hard this year. It's because I want to go home... When I think of celebrations, I always picture them on LaSalle. This is the first year that we haven't spent at least part of the holidays sitting at the bar drinking or sprawled on the family room floor on blankets watching TV.
It's an almost physical ache to go back just one more time - to walk in the front door, arms full - into the kitchen. To see Mom bustling around trying to get the last minute dishes on, while everyone else stands around the bar, drinking wine and eating cheese! I know it would be a "Our Town" moment, too wonderful and too painful to relive, but that's what I miss most this year. That's what I want for Christmas....
Ok, don't do that to me...I read your post at work and didn't start crying until the whole "Our Town" comment. It just feels sureal to me that we won't be there...ever again. At least we all feel the same way so we know we aren't crazy...I guess.
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