Endings And Beginnings

Trip Shakespeare, "Snow Days," although Maryland looks like it won't get a White Christmas this year

I lost my mom when I was 17, one month before I graduated from high school.  Ovarian cancer was the final cause, but there were some complicating and complicated factors leading up to it including a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.  She was 51.

Losing my dad at 94 this past November, it really feels like the other end of the telescope.  My mom was far too young and had far too much left to do, professionally speaking.  My sister and I needed her, like all children need their parents, and it probably made her feel guilty that she couldn't give more from her own deathbed, to somehow reach out and protect us from life, from ourselves, forever.

Maybe Dad was ready to go.  He died not long after I went to work that morning, and my sister had been spending a lot of time here but needed to go home for a bit.  One of the nurses says that's why he went when he did, he wouldn't leave if his children were around him, wouldn't want to trouble them.  Again, even in death, how can I make things easier for my kids?  Just pass as quietly as possible, make the rockiest of mountains a little bit smoother for them, for others.

So many parts of his body and mind were failing him.  Every trip to the bathroom became a potential drama.  There were days me and my sister or one of our wonderful nurses could hold his hand and watch a classic Western movie and laugh.  There were days were he would lash out at anyone around him.  Partly it was dementia.  Partly it was frustration with a body and a brain, almost a hundred years on Earth, that wouldn't work properly any longer, that wouldn't take direction as intended.

I'm having Christmas Eve dinner with my sister and her boyfriend.  We have plans for New Year's as well.  Tomorrow, Christmas Day, I'll take a long walk then come home and play with my cats, maybe watch a movie, maybe read a book.  If I'm being honest, a bit of laundry and kitchen cleaning would probably be a good idea as well, the simple acts of keeping things going in my own life.

I've been talking to my mom more than usual lately.  She was much more of a holiday person than my dad.  Even she thinks Christmas decorations going up right after Halloween are tacky, water down the whole thing a bit.  I'm talking to my dad a lot, almost daily.  I'll see a news story that I think he'd like to hear and make a mental note to tell him when I get home, where I'll sit down with him for his lunch or dinner and we'll just talk, or I'll just talk, and we'll have all the time in the world to share a joke.

I miss them both so much.  It hurts.  Talking to them helps a bit.  Thinking of them too, at their strongest and best.  We'll go forward together into a kinder year, I'm sure of it.