I love Christmas. I'm not religious but I love all the decorations, baking, wrapping gifts and visiting family. With the loss of my brother in law this year, there seems to be a big cloud hanging over this year's season. I got so sad and frustrated the other day that I almost quit Christmas for good. Having the Christmas lights wrapped up from the wrong end didn't help matters much. For many years I've battled not having decorating the Christmas tree turn into a chore. Working so much though turns everything else into a chore. I love looking at all the decorations- many that I've had since I was a kid. My Mom used to buy us decorations every year with the date on them from Hallmark. I have some from the '70's. I even have a tiny paper Christmas card with Merry Christmas written in German inside that came from my parents first Christmas tree in the '60's- which I can't find this year and has just added to the bad vibes. I'm glad that I made the effort to finish decorating the tree even though I didn't put every ornament on it. I found a cache of red bows that I tied with glee all over the tree which made it look great and gave it a finished look. I love when it's plugged up and the beautiful colored lights glow. A Christmas tree always makes me happy.
But with my Brother in law gone it makes me feel a little guilty too. I'm still in shock he's gone and it's still devastating the the family. Funny that it's hanging over Christmas because my bro-n-law didn't like Christmas. He hated the pressure of getting gifts and just like my husband HATES going to a crowded Mall to have to shop. In the last few years he had gotten me a gift certificate from Amazon which I LOVED. He could go online and get them emailed to us. Who would've known that a simple email would mean so much to me now. I happened to have never deleted the email I got last year announcing the gift certificate. It was a simple message at the time but one of my most prized possessions now. "Merry Christmas! I love you." said the email and it was signed.
That's what Christmas is about to me. For me it's the one day that there is no question that I have a great family that loves me. I don't have to think about anything else for 24 hours but how happy I am to be with my family. This year I'll be incredibly sad that my husband doesn't have his brother to call to talk to on Christmas day. His parents will have Christmas alone this year. All we can do is remember how much we loved him and that he loved us too.
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3 comments:
Mike liked Christmas. He looked forward to visiting with his parents every year. The same way he enjoyed his Thanksgiving trips to visit you. Mike said that spending time with the people that you love was the most important gift that you can give. He was right.
Rene- I miss him so much. I miss him for Matt the most. The shock of Mike being gone has not dissipated in the least. The only thing that makes me feel better is going to YouTube and watching the interview that got posted there of Mike with Todd, Frank Cho and John Romita Sr. with Marv Wolfman. Unfortunately for us, Marv and John dominate the whole 8 parts. But you can hear Mike's laugh in part 1 or 8 I believe. I thought that watching this shot of him alive would be weird but it's not to me. Seems perfectly logical that he would still be alive. I just still can't believe that he's not with us. It's not fair. He did not deserve to die this young.
Sorry- it's really late and I should go to bed. Peace!
I didn't realize that you had responded to this. Youtube is great. I said that to Matt a while ago when I saw that clip. I miss Mike a lot too. I still want to blame someone for taking him away from me. That kind of comes and goes.
If you don't know Mike & I both liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer a lot. So to quote Buffy right before she died the second time "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. be brave. live for me."
Having to live in a world where Mike doesn't is hard. We have to remember when people die they live on in the people they leave behind.
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