Ne pas oublier—one year later

Ne pas oublier. To not forget. Last Christmas, nearly all my father’s earthly possessions fit in my reusable bag sporting a French grocery list and reminder not to forget. Christmas morning after he died, my husband and I cleared his belongings from his room in the Alzheimer’s wing of the nursing home. I snapped this photo because I did not want to forget.

Forget what? My dear, sweet father, of course. His smile. His dignity as his mind and body declined. His love of music, tennis, wordplay, photography. His happy spirit. His love for my mom and our family. How he  recorded precious family moments on film because he did not want to forget them. The cruel irony of Alzheimer’s stealing his memory.

I also wanted this photo to remind me that life is fleeting and possessions don’t matter at the end. Because of the photo, all year, mere sight of this Ne pas oublier bag has triggered grief so deep that I could not use the bag. I would have to remember to buy fish and fruits another way.

One year and one day into my dad-grief journey, I thank God for His divine comfort and provision of compassionate friends and their hugs and prayers and laughter—and Puffs tissues. In fact, I dab sad tears as I type this. My heart has felt like dry, torn, straw tinder—itself dead, matted in the dirt—though now bathed in sunset’s hazy gold and smoky purple light. At some future dawn, God’s healing will be sufficient for new green shoots to sprout. In the meantime though, I can choose joy in God’s faithfulness and comfort, lovingkindness, promises and healing. It has taken me a year to make this decision. Sorry, Lord, for being so slow at this.

On Christmas Eve, the eve of the dreaded first anniversary, I packed up party supplies to take to Mom’s, including the DVD I’d had made from Dad’s 8mm films from the 1950s. I wanted our whole family to share in the joy Dad had taken in preserving precious family moments. We did! I wanted him to be present at our Christmas party. I wanted to remember his creativity and love. I decided to start using my Ne pas oublier bag again. I won’t forget.

I won't forget my father. Or his and my brief sojourn, and with God's help, I won't forget to choose joy.

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5

Humbug

Fiberoptic tinsel twinkles rainbows in our Christmas tree, bedecked with ornaments, each a special memory from Christmases past. I'm already making lists for this Christmas ~ the menu, gifts for each guest, centerpieces, the short devotional to honor Jesus, the reason for the season, and the carol we'll sing together.

Webster's defines a carol as a song of joy or mirth, a popular song or ballad of religious joy. "Oh come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Emmanuel." "He rules the world with truth and grace." These are just a few carol lyrics that make true peace dance in my soul.

Since I'm into Christmas, I went to see A Christmas Carol yesterday thinking I would not have much in common with grouchy old Ebenezer Scrooge. But an unexpected moment brought my handkerchief out to dry my cheeks. During the spectre of Christmas present, old Ebenezer lost himself for a moment and joined the children dancing in a circle. His white nightgown flapped and his long nightcap flopped as he skipped and pranced. Then he eagerly lined up with the other wildly chattering children to receive a small gift. He held the tiny, shiny red box close to his heart as though it were a treasure. Then when he returned to his viewing spot at the edge of the festive scene, he noticed a small girl sitting alone. She had not gotten up to get a present. Slowly, tentatively, Ebenezer gave her his shiny red box. His face registered sadness for his loss until he saw how happy it made the girl. As he returned to invisibility on the outskirts of subsequent scenes, he remembered this joy of giving, which contributed to his grand generosity of spirit at the end of the play.

Since I've had joy in giving for as long as I remember, I didn't expect to identify with Scrooge. But I have to admit, my heart is not all that childlike any more. I seem to be dragging a sack of sadness and responsibility as big and bulgy as Santa's bag of toys. Would I lose myself in undignified dance? Would I squeal in unintelligible delight? Would I line up eagerly to get a gift, or would I hang back pretending it didn't matter? Would a simple gift thrill me? Would I give away my only treasure?

My tears during this scene surprised me enough to ponder these questions of cynicism, hope, sophistication, simplicity, keeping, and giving. If I were musically inclined, I'd write a carol about a little girl shyly giving the humbuggy parts of her heart to Jesus and then closing her eyes and holding out her hands to receive whatever He might put there. Lo and behold, He puts His own hands in hers. The best gift of all.

Since my last blog entry almost four months ago was inspired by the T-shirts for sale in a gift catalog, I may as well admit I am having trouble coming up with worthy blog material from my personal life. I figure people probably don’t want to read about each string of November and December errands run in order to prepare for Christmas gifts and food. Am I right? What do you want to read about?

How about the Christmas party I went to where I poured myself a glass of ginger ale with full awareness that I would have an embarrassing case of hiccups for the entire evening? This is why I don’t drink pop—because it always gives me hiccups. This particular evening, however, the hiccup fairy did not visit me. Instead, two other party guests had terminal hiccups. They were not the least bit embarrassed.

Another little irony of the season was that Robert and I used the upcoming annual Christmas gathering at our house to motivate a thorough cleaning of the fluorescent light fixture in our kitchen. Five prior such gatherings had not motivated us to flip and tap, tap, tap the fixture until all the tiny, gauzy, black wings and bug bodies fell out. But this year we did it, and boy, were we happy to have that job done. It had been “bugging” us for years. Would the gleaming white plastic now blind our guests? Not a guest looked aloft to notice that our insect cemetery had been transformed.

Christmas Day conversation contained many laughs, including “Cue ball in the fireplace!” (Don’t ask.) As I replay that sweet day in my head, one of my favorite clips is my nephew Jonathan’s surprised observation when the lettuce that had fit in a bag that had fit in a wooden salad bowl did not fit in the same bowl when emptied out of the bag: “I guess physics doesn’t apply to salad.”

Well, I hope my ordinary-life blog will be of some interest to you. Otherwise, since I have already exhausted the catalog T-shirt idea, I may have to resort to listing the curious names of spammers who have shown up in my e-mail. Here are some of my favorites: Dredge V. Steadiness, Perturbation A. Eye, Cognac M. Kent, Felted K. Squeegee, Edelweiss H. Tractors, and Leeward Apoplexy. I hope the names I dredged up are squeegee-clean and do not have unsavory connotations that might perturb anyone’s eye or lead to apoplexy. (Apologies to Mr. or Ms. Kent and Mr. or Ms. Tractors, whose names I couldn’t figure out how to work into my disclaimer.)

I'll try to post more frequent blog bits in 2008.
Happy New Year!