Anyway, my mother loves this album, so I buy it, and tell the salesperson why because I'm that pretentious, and I keep it for her, sitting on my dresser.
Until she's dying in hospital. I tell Mum what her christmas present is one afternoon when we're alone, because I want to give her the pleasure of receiving, even though we both know she won't get to unwrap it under the tree. She coughs and says "I'm not surprised that album is still being made, it's so good." I hope this is ironic, but I fear it was earnest.
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We've never gone away as a family at christmas.
We're eating our christmas lunch out, at some posh place near Mapua, which has promised to cook me special vegetarian food since their menu is pure animal.
We've never not spent the day at home, cooking and eating and drinking and hanging out with friends and each other.
We've never not been with Mum.
Yet so much will be the same. I've made two of Mum's fudges and her strawberry ice cream. Dad's made Mum's christmas cake. My sister's made her biscuits and truffles. We will play board games and listen to Christmas carols. I'll give Dolly and Kenny to the whole family, and we'll have a laugh and, for some of us, probably a cry too. My brother and I will be the ones who cry.
So we'll have presents, and every one of us will cook something delicious for the others, and we'll play backyard cricket and compete over sudoku and Dad will pick at least one fight about politics per day, mostly with me, and my brother will obsess about the weather and my sister will read ten books and I will need to go off for a walk or do some yoga to stay sane (ish), even though I love my family.
In a way, this year is about our family now, and how we re-form together, since we're no longer the family we were this time last year, with my mother. I will miss her horribly, but I'm excited about the new stuff too, and looking forward to the familiar. I'm even kinda keen to hear Dolly and Kenny.
Just the once mind.
I hope everyone gets the chance to spend some time with people they love this christmas, and celebrate the time or enjoy some peace. Ciao for now.
4 comments:
Thank you for writing this. It's a beautiful acknowledgement that the holidays are not all joy, all the time. It's also a lovely tribute to your family, and to your mother. I hope you have a lovely time in Nelson.
Yes. This first Christmas without that person. I loved your post, it reminded me so gently that I'm not the only one facing this. Go well.
Thanks for your beautiful blog, I know I can relate to what you write with a different sort of grief. My first season trying to deal with it I determinedly tried to keep everything the same and consequently had to go through the motions of traditions, having to face thing after thing that didn't bring me the joy it did the previous year compounding the sense of loss.
Im glad you were so much wiser with mixing things you kept and things you brought fresh. I learnt my lesson this year and did that and while I still felt a certain amount of 'unease' at the differences I also felt a sense of being released from trying to recreate something which has passed and that bought be a real sense of freedom.
I hope on the otherside of the Christmas season it has proved a good balance for you and your whanau.
Placebogirl, Anne and E.Volving - thank you all, much appreciate being heard when I'm trying to write about this. And appreciate too that hearing about my grief will remind others of their own - I know I am having that experience too.
I had a beautiful time in Nelson, and we had time to remember Mum (singing to D and K with much thigh slapping) which was fun as well as poignant (a big cry for me on the beach at sunset on
Christmas day when I realised how completely and utterly entwined my sense of self is with my mum, and how strange it will be to have experiences now I won't talk through with her).
Good to be home now too though. Thank you all again.
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