Christmas Past

I took a much needed break and sat perfectly still with a cup of coffee in the relative quiet of my living room. Christmas 2002 is culminating and the worst of the frenzy is accomplished and I am grateful to reflect on having survived, nearly every task ticked off my long list.

My vision blurred as I studied the lighted Christmas tree, adorned with now ragged ornaments made by the children a lifetime ago. I gave into reverie and allowed my mind to wander through forgotten doors of Christmas past. You know what I realized? The Christmases that stand out the most for me, in recollection, were the hardest ones. The ones spent separated from family. The ones when I had no money to buy gifts. The ones when I wasn’t sure where I’d be and what would happen to me in the New Year.

I especially recall the year my mom, dad and I moved to Akron, Ohio from Cincinnati. My dad had been transferred. Mother and I drove up in a blinding snowstorm a few weeks after Dad was settled. On December 23rd I decided, regardless of the late hour, we needed a tree. Times were especially tough that year, money scarce to non-existent, circumstances tentative, but I struck out in the family fifty-nine Ford Fairlane determined to find a tree, hopefully a cheap one. At dusk, I found a tree lot still open with a big sign out front that said “All Trees, $2.00”. I pulled in and picking the best of what remained, I gleefully hauled it back to our new residence. Frankly, I don’t remember what it was decorated with, but I vividly recall it smelled just like Christmas. The next day, on Christmas Eve, my mom gave me $10 to go buy presents to put under the tree. I spent about three hours in the dime store laboring over the exact best way to spend that fin. On Christmas morning, as meager as our celebration was, we were grateful for a roof over our heads and food to eat. I kept thinking, and this too shall pass.

Funny how your mind locks into these times, the details fresh and poignant and all the good ones just sort of blend together into a vague collective warm feeling with no particular memory to bring forward to peruse. I can also fast forward these to a number of difficult Christmases while raising my kids and a couple of really bad ones that, even so, had something redeeming to count. Maybe it’s just me, and the way I ride the waves as they come, but it seems to me, that my worst experiences have always been the defining moments of the development of my character.

What is true about our lives is that we own nothing except our attitude and control nothing really. But deep inside every moment, good and bad, we have the choice before us to determine what the moment will do to us in the long run. Every day, every challenge puts us at a fork in the road. That’s just the way it is. We can grieve and become dysfunctional or we can find something to turn for good out of our misery.

I think the bleak days of our lives afford us the opportunity to test what we are truly made of. Not losing heart or succumbing to despair in the face of trouble sends a message to adversity that you will not only survive the worst of times, but triumph, emerging stronger. If, for some reason, you feel you are slipping, look up and out and do something kind for someone less fortunate than yourself. There will always be those more as well as less fortunate than we. Somehow, we gain perspective when we look out of our own darkness.

And when it looks as though you might not make it, never forget…

and this too shall pass.

Merry Christmas