christmas past

I woke up this morning slowly, which has been the norm since surgery.  As I lay there in the dim light tears came to my eyes and I don't really know why.  My pain is fairly well controlled and I have everything I need except for my little family whom I miss terribly.  We were together so much that first six weeks that it seems like way more than three weeks since I've had their hugs.  We are all we have now....the three of us.  

I miss my parents too.  It was on the Sunday before Christmas that my mother went down at church, her osteoporitic hip snapping on its' own.  She never went back to her home away from home, spending the holidays in the nursing home with a pinned hip.  Our last holiday breakfast consisted of me and Lauren and Bubba gathering with her in the dining room with our own homecooked favorites like cheese grits.  Within a few weeks the pins came out and she went back to surgery for a hip replacement.  All went surprisingly well with that.  And then? The diverticulum ruptured.  The only possible repair was another surgery which she couldn't survive.  It snowed the day before she died on January 23rd.  Tommy left his wife and kids to a blizzard in Virginia to get here.  

My parents loved the Christmas season.  Back in the day that log cabin was decked out from head to toe with lights which Daddy always did himself.  In the later years they settled for a mini tree from Kroger but still found delight in decorating.  Our tradition was a late breakfast at their house and time around the tree as a family, Every other year I worked but usually managed to at least get away long enough to eat.  Now the cabin sits empty with 60 years worth of Christmas past ghosts celebrating our family.

We have tried to keep those traditions alive and create new ones.  Bubba says I can cook "almost" as good as Mama did.  I dug through a box of ornaments yesterday and Mamye found me covered in glitter when she arrived with my Norfolk pine.  Lights will go on today, just a strand or two.  

I know a lot of people who are hurting this season, missing those who are gone.  Two of my friends lost their wives this year.  There have been many losses but lots of blessings.  Reaves is one of them.  

Hold your family tight and remember that it won't always be that way.  

^j^