White Christmases to Come

Most of the time my children were growing up, I was divorced from, and sharing custody of them with, their father. We took turns having them for holidays, so I taught them that Jesus wasn't actually born on December; therefore, we could choose any random day on which to celebrate Christmas together. Once, we ended up with Christmas, complete with a decorated tree and Christmas carols, in mid-March. This year, I'm putting our Christmas spirit to the test, once again.

My mother never even decorated our Christmas tree before Christmas Eve. She said that this was to commemorate the trees bursting into bloom when Jesus was born.
Tomorrow marks two weeks before Christmas. As usual, all of our gifts have long been bought and awaiting packaging into approximately fifty separate family surprise boxes. Jams have been made, but pecans have neither been bought nor roasted. Coconut macaroons aren't baked, and bourbon balls are still in the bottles and boxes of individual ingredients. And not one decoration has been hung by the chimney or anywhere else at our place.

Richard is alone at our home in the holler, and I have just been released from my duties as assistant to my sister, the executor of my mother's estate. I really don't have the energy to hurry home, bake, and box all those gifts for Richard to wrap and mail prior to the big day. For this, the package delivery people's families should be thankful. My children and their children have alternate holiday plans made because of the uncertainty about my availability, so I'm afraid that our version of Santa's sleigh will stay grounded this year.

Richard and I have never spent a Christmas together as a couple without outside obligations. This year, I think we can both stand a bit of comfort, joy, and blessed peace while we take a rest from family. We plan to check into a Gulf Coast Casino hotel and put a little jingle in the nickle slot machines, attend a few first-class Christmas shows, and eat rosy red crab legs dripping with butter from the bountiful buffets.

We'll spend lots of time driving around the Gulf Coast area from New Orleans to Ocean Springs looking for the perfect winter home. This way, we can guarantee that our next Christmas will be white, whether because of snow in Coker Creek, white caps on the waves of Lake Pontchartrain, or white sand on the Biloxi beaches. I'm dreaming of many wonderfully White Christmases to come; maybe a belated one in February or March. Would it be too tacky to celebrate Christmas during Mardi Gras?

A World of Wonder

Cuddling with cute kids,
Conversing with collegiates,
Spumoni shared with my niece.
Coffee in my son's kitchen,
Painting with his partner:
A world of wonder for me.

What a Way to Spend a Glorious Day!

Oh what a way to spend a glorious day!
It began with soul sister sharing
Of Christmas projects and words of wonder.
I followed this with a drive along
The endless edge of the earth.

Sun glistening on white sand,
And dancing on the ripples,
Gently teasing my cares out,
To be carried far away.

A vist to my son's home
To gather hugs and kisses
Then onto my "adopted" daughter
And her beautiful baby boys.

Children's books and silly songs,
Watching their mother soothe their souls,
As she watched over their final thoughts
Before thay drifted off to sleep.

The quiet moments of sharing
Our hearts and souls with each other,
The time for reaping adult rewards
For embracing another day.

Grinning In Gratitude

Feeling joy drives some folks mad:
Those who think their suffering
Saves them from being bad.
Don't they know that The Creator
Made us to be glad?

Some people think that being nasty
To all those around them
Makes them mature or classy.
When I'm around them,
I feel quite trashy.

Joy is our show of gratitude;
All it requires is change
In our overall attitude.
It's a way of looking at life,
Not a function of mood.

Pain Without Gain

My sisters and brothers are parts of my soul
Those born of my mother's flesh and
Those, too, who have chosen me.
There is no love without giving some of me,
A part never again to be fully my own.
There is no touch without the fusion
Of a part of you with a part of me.

I must build a shield before I go out,
Something to protect myself from pain.
I have slowly given away all of me;
And been infused with the poison of many.
I have depleted the wells of my loves;
They say to turn my face to heaven.
I fear that my plight on this earth is that:

I'll never be whole again.

Simply Sadness

So many false things are said about family,
Especially after a loved one is dead.
Is it because we are compelled to portray
Only that for which we most fervently wished?
Or is it because we have truly convinced
Ourselves that certain people have no faults?

Only one of my heroes was a perfect person;
At least that's what I was taught to believe.
His only weapons were love and words,
His heart's desire: eternal unity.
This does not seem the way with people of faith
Who continue to hate in the name of One God.

Sadly, there are many who demand that we
Bond with them in their hatred and fear,
Defining their allies by common disdain for "other"
Rather than seeking for something the same in all.
What may look like lack of forgiveness for wrong done me
May be simply sadness for what could never be.

I Wish I Could Miss My Mother

My mother has died at the age of eighty-four. I'll never know if her heart gave out from too many miles on her odometer or because it was so broken by her brazen brats, myself included.

My mother's religion was a religion of rules and rites; this was the most important thing in her life. All came second to that: her husband, her children, her happiness. It was her firm belief that her religion was God on earth, and that faithfulness to it was faithfulness to God. She could never celebrate the successes of herself, her children, or her marriage because this would have been prideful. She also seemed to feel firmly that suffering was necessary to salvation. She apparently felt joined with Jesus in her attempts to suffer for our sins in our stead. This left little space for loving us as we really are, much less liking us.

I suppose I could have tried to be more duplicitous in my relationship with my mother, but my face would have given away my falseness. My mother's religion required that she find fault with herself for poor mothering if she admitted to any approval of our doubts about the letters of her laws. It was an act of mercy to hide my faults from her, and the only way I could do this was to hide myself from her. We simply brought out the beast in each other.

My parents had a very troubled marriage. The sight of me brought back all of my mother's worst feelings about my father, both before and after his death. In my mother's eyes, the sins of the father were certainly carried by this daughter.

It is with great sadness that I admit that I will not miss my mother. There are many parts of me and of my siblings that come from her; these I can continue to celebrate or censure without mixed emotions. I feel liberated to finally get to know the men and women that my siblings have become.