So, are you ready for Christmas?

That singular question is why I want to live in my closet for the next 5 days, along with the shoes I will never wear again because of my geriatric feet. If I could get away without going out my door till December 26th,  I would be quite content. Why is that such a popular question, who really gives a rat’s if I am ready or not?  What does being “ready” mean?  Truth be told, there is a very good possibility that the 25th of December will happen even if I am not ready.

This year it is much harder to get  “ready,”  it is right around this time two years ago that Justin came home from South Dakota for what would be his last Christmas. We always kept somewhat of a lean refrigerator and his homecoming was always a celebration, an excuse to fill the refrigerator and bake like crazy.  Doug and Ryan, before Ryan left home for the Navy, would tease me when Justin came home from Franciscan about the “extras” that would appear. They would open up the refrigerator and see it well stocked and would tease me with  “Justin must be coming home.”  When it was just Doug and I, it was up to Doug to keep up the tradition of teasing me about preparing for Justin coming home.  The boy always came home skinny and tired. (Lest you think I ignored the other two, I did not, it was just fun to tease me.)

I keep telling myself that we only have to get through the next few days or so and then perhaps the darkness will recede, the what I call a “grief migraine” will ease.  Your head  pounds and it becomes so hard to focus and concentrate… part of you is screaming inside for your child, you do your best to listen to whoever is talking to you and take mental notes of what they are saying…but sometimes the cry for Justin is so loud.

Sometimes I wonder why there was no one to save him, no one to pull him out of the car…no good Samaritan who saw his accident and his car go into the pond, you think of these things at odd times and its hard to shake it off.  A simple trip to the vets where I have to pass a pond that is so close to the road can generate all sorts of thoughts…going to Frederick and passing a large retention pond…sets off a thought pattern of an overturned submerged white car, its wheels sticking out above the water.

Perhaps because there has been another small flurry of paperwork that has come to completion.  Forms that had to be notarized, blessings to a dear friend who notarized them for us, mail that comes with Doug’s name as executor for Justin Jackson, papers to scan, forms to sign, it doesn’t seem to end.  Those envelopes mixed in with Christmas cards is such clashing sort of sound, to the point where last week we didn’t open the mail, it sat and stacked up… we looked at it, and it looked at us, the cats tried to help by sorting it all over the floor…they can be so helpful.

So to all who might inquire, no, we are not ready for Christmas in a worldly sense.  I am ready though for Christmas with my family who are all pretty relaxed about the Christmas event…no expectations to be met, no frowns of disapproval if I wear my slippers to Christmas dinner, no hurt feelings if we show up with empty hands….just much loved faces who are glad that we are with them, who are eager to share what they have, thinking about it, they live out the Christmas message everyday in their lives.  For the the two years we were unemployed and underemployed, overlapping with Justin’s death….they always made room in their “inns” for us, always a place at the table, always a meal…a warm place. They always had gifts in their hands for us, they have been our wise counsel, and at times they have carried us.