Ghosts of Christmas Past

There is always a sense of relief when the holidays are “over”, and I will not quibble about how long Christmas really lasts, whether it be an octave, 12 days, or clear to February 2nd. My brain simply disconnects about details that can be absolutely meaningless to those who are grieving, or those who are ill and suffering. Due to a sudden and very scary illness in our family, we are still waiting to have a “Christmas” visit. I am just so grateful that no one died, it doesn’t really matter when we get together, I hear their voice on the phone, their heart still beats, it is enough.

I am four weeks post-op from my second surgery in two months. I don’t recommend slamming two foot surgeries nine  weeks apart.  The enforced stillness, the frustration of not being able to stand for more than minutes at a time, has taken a toll on my spirits.  There is no sense in lying about it, it is a truth we should all remember about those who suffer chronic pain and illness, there is a gloom that descends. Much time is to be had to think about the “what might have beens”, the wondering of how did we come to be at the place we are, the longing for those who are gone from us. We spend time with the ghosts of Christmas past and we find them as distressing as Scrooge found Marley’s visitation, but for different reasons.

I have been reading about how our brain integrates the very real pain we feel when a child dies with what were previously happy and joy filled memories of our child. Every memory we have of our child is now bound with pain and grief. One article I read called it “the cruel trick of grief.” When we are visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, we can barely draw our breath.  Everything of the season weighs our soul down as if we were carrying Marley’s chains. Memories that should be weightless, effortless, are dark and heavy.  You can blather on to us about how we should be joyful for Christmas and how we have to let the light of the season revive our darkness all you want, but don’t you understand the confusion we live in now?  How we cannot reconcile in our heads and hearts why memories that once brought us joy, now sink our teeth into our lip to keep silent the sobs that start in our chest? The ache in the head that looking at Christmas decorations brings? We miss the joy, please do not think that this is a choice, we must grieve.  A parent does not choose this conflagration of emotion that we do not understand, but that we wake up with every day. We don’t wake up thinking of what the day will bring, we wake up remembering that our child has died and slowly transition to the tasks of the day. I do not believe we will ever be free of those chains that weigh us down, perhaps after years they will lighten.

I watched three different versions of “A Christmas Carol” this year, searching for the point of Scrooge’s conversion, what swayed his heart?  I realized that the one thing he could not bear was the death of Tiny Tim. The death of a child seared through his cruel and unfeeling heart to touch what was left of his humanity. I watched through the chilling scenes of a dark graveyard with the ghost of Christmas future where Scrooge is confronted with his name on the tombstone, he begs for and is given  a second chance to live in peace, a chance to save Tiny Tim.

We fear the ghost of Christmas past and so we avoid the revisiting of old memories, pictures, traditions, and yet at the same time we fear forgetting, losing the memory of our child. We cry with Scrooge to the ghost of Christmas past that we can bear no more, take us back, and yet we find ourselves at a loss in the present. We fear the ghost of Christmas future because literally we fear the vision of the grave, not so much for ourselves, but of who else might we see engraved on the stone, our surviving child? our spouse?

I began to understand Scrooge, his greatest vulnerability wasn’t that he had no heart, rather  it was a heart that had been so wounded.  Cold unfeeling money was safe, profit was safe, to detach was safe, to love is a great risk. I think to be a bereaved parent is to be given a chain of weights we did not forge, but are to carry for our lives.  Are we a clarion call to the world, shrill and unwelcome as Marley’s ghost, but a call none the less to stop inflicting pain on each other, but to make mankind our business? To still the harsh word, the cutting quip, but to instead be kinder, quieter, to chose to see the wounded heart where hardness breeds, rather than see only a hardened heart?  Are our chains a reminder of the brevity of life?

So much unsaid to our Justin, no last words, no final goodbye, just ghosts of memories. Shadows of times past. There is no ghost of Christmas future that holds Justin in it, just his tombstone of Christmas past. I fear I do not know how to keep Christmas in my heart as Scrooge discovered, we are told he kept Christmas in his heart everyday and was a friend to all. Perhaps the trick is to see who needs the “prize turkey”, which was purchased for a few shillings, yet turned the tide of despair into a feast as it did for Bob Cratchit and his vulnerable family. It is at the least something to ponder.

Wishing each of you a peace filled 2013.