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Crying at Christmas
Making it through the first holiday season without my mom
I know I’ll cry on Christmas, because it will be the first without my mom. This first-ness is a technicality because my mom has been gone for at least four or five Christmases now. She was gone in the sense that her very understanding of Christmas, and all its rituals and festivities, was totally lost to her and thusly, her family.
She had once been a true Christmas fiend, the Grinch in reverse. She overbought, she overfed, she over wrapped and she threw party after party. Every December she welcomed a friends and family parade to our house. Every grouping of people had an appointed night of the month and every weekend was booked. Every one of of these gatherings had a specific menu and I think I spent more time in December waiting in bakery lines than I did in school.
Last Christmas, I mentioned the holiday only briefly to her. She had long lost the concept of time, space and location. Days of note did not register any reaction. She smiled, nodded and agreed that it was Christmas. That was all. The year before she’d at least acknowledged the sparse fake tree in the nursing home as a vaguely familiar object. That last year, she expressed nothing. Repetitive Christmas carols echoing in the drab halls shook none of her memories loose. Christmas was nothing to her.
