Sigh… I’m not even going to try to write a well-thought-out post. I have several drafts of other topics in progress, but I have not been able to finish any of them. Maybe I’m overthinking… maybe I have had other things going on and couldn’t focus… maybe I was trying too hard… maybe all of the above… … or maybe I wasn’t mean to post anything until now.
I appreciate if you put on your seatbelt for this ride… we may be making sharp turns into tangents; we may be jumping around rather than riding smoothly. Thank you for reading.
“There are moments which mark your life; moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same, and time is divided into two parts: BEFORE this and AFTER this. That’s the test, or so I tell myself. I tell myself that at times like that, strong people keep moving forward anyway, no matter what they’re going to find.”
– John Hobbes, Fallen (1998)
Any given day is filled with before this and after this just to get through 24 hours of time, but I had not given much thought to the bigger picture of my life’s “moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same”. We all experience obvious events, milestones, and so on that are regarded as life-changing, and if you make note of the date, some of those become anniversaries to celebrate whereas the more solemn ones are observed or remembered; but I’ve found that recognizing a life-changing moment when it happens means being fully present in the here and now and feeling it rather than thinking about it. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the future that has yet to arrive, and I can only live, stringing together moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months to fill in the details and get there.
As I am writing this on 24 December 2019, a full 365 days have passed since my mom died on 23 December 2018. Twelve hours later, my father, my brothers, and I were sitting in a funeral home making arrangements. On the morning of Christmas Eve, Christmas was the furthest thing from our minds, with the exception of my brother, the priest, who still had to celebrate Christmas Masses and spread God’s love through the traditions, rituals, and scripture of the birth of a child regarded as God incarnate, whose fate to die to save the world was already declared before his birth.
Death is inevitable, but our lives are not spent waiting for death. EVERY. DAY. COUNTS. and during the more challenging times, we may feel the truth of “before this and after this”. Regardless of a promise of an afterlife, we could look to the story of the Christ child and the life of Jesus and how we should be compassionate, kind, and loving because our lives have meaning and purpose beyond ourselves.
My family’s first Christmas without Mommy was 26 hours after she died. Nothing has been the same since her death, which was a life-changing event for my family (hahaha, yes, it was life-changing for my mom too), but even if her death was technically a single moment, we faced a chain of “before this and after this” moments during her hospitalization and final days in hospice care.
Now it’s Christmas Day 2019… another day of time moving forward with or without a post even though I intended on posting last night. A year ago, I thought I knew how this first set of holidays without my mom might be. In all honesty, the 365 days following my mother’s death included the shadow of concern that my father might fall into the group of widowers who die within a year of their spouse.
Here we are today, watching It’s a Wondeful Life. Chief Daddy completed a solo trip around the sun, and I can reflect on it knowing that Mommy’s illness and death were the catalyst for a better father-daughter relationship with my dad and a true appreciation for our time together.
On Sunday, 22 December 2019, Baba Ram Dass died. One of his quotes that had the most impact on me is:
“Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”
Ram Dass (1931-2019)
Yes, I meant for that to be a prompt for all of the things that have been swimming around in my head since 14 November 2019. That was the day Chief Daddy was hospitalized, and he finally was released to go home on Friday, 20 December. His health concerns distracted us from my mom’s absence from Thanksgiving, her birthday, my brother’s birthday, and my dad’s birthday. We just wanted him to get well and be home for Christmas. Chief’s condition wasn’t life-threatening, but grief can take a toll on a person’s motivation. I wondered if he didn’t care to get better because it meant continuing to live without my mom.
Baba Ram Dass’s death, a day before the anniversary of my mom’s death, reminded me of my own lessons in compassion during both of my parents’ hospitalizations. If I have been granted my Christmas wishes through novenas to Saint Nicholas, he delivered this year again. This is the second year that I’ve been preoccupied and didn’t prepare for Christmas, but I wanted nothing more than for my parents to be relieved of any suffering.
I’ve more to say about this past year, but let’s leave this post focused on Chief Daddy’s first 365 days as a widower, his strength in moving forward, and his presence at home where he belongs. Blessings are counted. Needs are met. Wants are few. I could not ask for more.
Happy Christmas Day… may you truly appreciate the gifts that can’t be wrapped and stuck under a tree.
Luceat lux vestra.
