Surviving Christmas

Christmas arrived right on schedule despite the fact I’d had my foot on the brakes for weeks. It slipped into the house like an obligation and has fled almost as quickly. We set it up, put it out, ate it up and then got the hell out of Dodge.  It’s done and I’m glad. We survived. 

The kids and I left town on Boxing Day.  Ten of us on a mission; to get as far away from the usual as possible – the ‘usual’ having been anything but for a long time.  I closed the door on the dining table still covered in Christmas linens and crumbs and surrounded by eighteen chairs. I filled a cooler with the remnants of our turkey dinner and piled the dogs, their beds and bowls, into the car and put my foot on the gas. 

We met up with the others in Ucluelet six hours later.  We congratulated each other on our safe drive, unloaded the cars into two cabins and plunked ourselves down miles from home with the same holes in our hearts that we’d been trying to out run.

An empty chair will not be denied even if it is hidden from view. We all knew who was missing, his absence has added to our common denominators, the ache in our hearts a shared bond tying this family a little tighter together than with the rest of the world. He will forever be missing and being missed by all of us.

I think we are all being stronger for each other than we actually feel inside. Everyone is trying to create a new normal, to reshape the way our family works. The kids were gentle with their encouragement of me, but even with their support I felt a new lonely reality settle around me.  I needed moments of solitude, needed to step back and watch from a distance closer to his than theirs. I am alone in my generation when I am with them, I carry an empty chair with me everywhere I go. I am blessed to be part of the group but alone in my vantage. 

This past year has been survived but only just barely.  Tonight I will put 2018 to bed and look toward a new year in a newly configured family.  There are changes waiting on the horizon, possibilities, problems… life.  I am broken in a fashion I alone can understand but I am also stronger than I have ever been.  Christmas has been survived and 2019 beckons, it may not be the happy new year I’m used to but it is a new year and I am poised to take it on.