"It's the most wonderful time of the year.
There'll be much mistletoeing,
And hearts will be glowing
When loved ones are near . . . "
Until December 25, 2006, Christmas was always my favorite holiday. I loved the music, the lights, the food, and, most of all, the idea of one day when friends and family could put aside their differences and laugh together without restraint. I always associated the holiday with freedom from responsibilities - school was out, work was on hold, and for twenty-four hours, I could escape from the tightly-wound ball of perfectionistic tendencies that dictated my everyday life. At the age of twenty-two, I embraced Christmas with the same enthusiasm as when I was little and found myself too excited to sleep. Back then, I'd pass the long hours until morning listening to tape recordings of books like Roald Dahl's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" until my parents finally allowed my sister and I to race downstairs, open presents, and read "Santa's" letter cautioning us to be good again during the upcoming year.
That all changed on December 25, 2006 when, unknowingly, I said goodbye to my late husband, Jon, for the last time. He had been at home on R&R from Iraq during the two weeks leading up to Christmas, and Christmas day just happened to be the date he was required to return to his unit. I always describe that last moment I saw him as being somewhat surreal and unsettling - he turned his head back toward me, flashed a big goofy grin, and then he was gone. But he'll be back, I told myself. And soon...right? In theory, things were supposed to get easier during the second half of his year-long deployment; we were on the downslope, and although Jon always told me he didn't like to count the days (that was bad luck), reaching the six-month mark represented a milestone...and, for me, a huge relief. As it turns out, of course, it's not that simple - there is no safety zone in a place like the one to which he had to return, and over the next several months, many good men lost their lives there. I was twenty-two, life was just beginning, and as we said our goodbyes, I naively believed the worst of it was over. Oh, how wrong I was.
We didn't have Skype or anything like that back then - just email and photos - and as I watched him disappear down the runway, I mentally prepared myself for the fact that the last couple of weeks of precious memories would have to sustain us for the remainder of the deployment. No amount of preparation, however, could have helped me face what would ultimately amount to a far longer reality. As you might imagine, Christmases after that year were always among the most dreaded of days. It should have just been another hard date, but I always found myself haunted by what I now knew was the last fleeting moment I'd see him alive. How can a person go from being so happy and vibrant and alive one minute to being dead and gone the next?? Part of me wanted to bottle up a mental snapshot of his face in that moment so that I'd never forget the sight of it while the other part couldn't stomach the sickening feeling I got whenever I realized that moment was it - the last one. For the first couple of Christmases, I think I was still somewhat in shock...then shock turned to sadness, anger, trepidation, and finally, back to sadness when I finally started to deal with many of the issues I'd tried to push aside for years. To say I was stubbornly opposed to the possibility of enjoying the holidays again would be an understatement.
As I've finally realized and learned to accept, however, Christmas is just another day. Sometimes it might be a day full of joy and laughter and togetherness, and, as many soldiers can attest, sometimes it might be spent many miles away from home in a combat zone. For me, this Christmas was a blissfully uneventful and relaxing occasion during which, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt peace. Ah, peace...such a wonderful, elusive thing. After years of yearning and searching for it, I finally seem to have found it. I spent the day doing a whole lot of nothing with the man I love and feeling immensely grateful for his unquestioning acceptance of who I am, complicated past and all. He is, in every sense of the word, my partner, and I'd be absolutely lost without him. We laughed, cooked together, ate Christmas dinner, and made plans for the weeks ahead. I can honestly say it doesn't get much better than that, nor could I have asked for more. Christmas doesn't have to be the big, boisterous, shiny occasion it was when I was a kid for it to still be as perfect as anything ever gets in this life.
I guess I must have been relatively good this year because the gifts I can neither appraise nor quantify have been plentiful. The greatest of all these gifts is, without a doubt, love. Thanks to love, I can now look forward to future holiday seasons with a smile. Thanks to love, Christmas is once again one of the most truly wonderful times of the year. And thanks to love, optimism and excitement have taken the place of stubborn opposition to holiday happiness. To simply call myself "lucky" doesn't do justice to this new reality; it fails to pay proper tribute to what is nothing short of a major turning point in my life. For the first time in years, the thought of a "happy" new year doesn't seem so far-fetched...in fact, I'm looking forward to it.
There'll be much mistletoeing,
And hearts will be glowing
When loved ones are near . . . "
Until December 25, 2006, Christmas was always my favorite holiday. I loved the music, the lights, the food, and, most of all, the idea of one day when friends and family could put aside their differences and laugh together without restraint. I always associated the holiday with freedom from responsibilities - school was out, work was on hold, and for twenty-four hours, I could escape from the tightly-wound ball of perfectionistic tendencies that dictated my everyday life. At the age of twenty-two, I embraced Christmas with the same enthusiasm as when I was little and found myself too excited to sleep. Back then, I'd pass the long hours until morning listening to tape recordings of books like Roald Dahl's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" until my parents finally allowed my sister and I to race downstairs, open presents, and read "Santa's" letter cautioning us to be good again during the upcoming year.
That all changed on December 25, 2006 when, unknowingly, I said goodbye to my late husband, Jon, for the last time. He had been at home on R&R from Iraq during the two weeks leading up to Christmas, and Christmas day just happened to be the date he was required to return to his unit. I always describe that last moment I saw him as being somewhat surreal and unsettling - he turned his head back toward me, flashed a big goofy grin, and then he was gone. But he'll be back, I told myself. And soon...right? In theory, things were supposed to get easier during the second half of his year-long deployment; we were on the downslope, and although Jon always told me he didn't like to count the days (that was bad luck), reaching the six-month mark represented a milestone...and, for me, a huge relief. As it turns out, of course, it's not that simple - there is no safety zone in a place like the one to which he had to return, and over the next several months, many good men lost their lives there. I was twenty-two, life was just beginning, and as we said our goodbyes, I naively believed the worst of it was over. Oh, how wrong I was.
We didn't have Skype or anything like that back then - just email and photos - and as I watched him disappear down the runway, I mentally prepared myself for the fact that the last couple of weeks of precious memories would have to sustain us for the remainder of the deployment. No amount of preparation, however, could have helped me face what would ultimately amount to a far longer reality. As you might imagine, Christmases after that year were always among the most dreaded of days. It should have just been another hard date, but I always found myself haunted by what I now knew was the last fleeting moment I'd see him alive. How can a person go from being so happy and vibrant and alive one minute to being dead and gone the next?? Part of me wanted to bottle up a mental snapshot of his face in that moment so that I'd never forget the sight of it while the other part couldn't stomach the sickening feeling I got whenever I realized that moment was it - the last one. For the first couple of Christmases, I think I was still somewhat in shock...then shock turned to sadness, anger, trepidation, and finally, back to sadness when I finally started to deal with many of the issues I'd tried to push aside for years. To say I was stubbornly opposed to the possibility of enjoying the holidays again would be an understatement.
As I've finally realized and learned to accept, however, Christmas is just another day. Sometimes it might be a day full of joy and laughter and togetherness, and, as many soldiers can attest, sometimes it might be spent many miles away from home in a combat zone. For me, this Christmas was a blissfully uneventful and relaxing occasion during which, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt peace. Ah, peace...such a wonderful, elusive thing. After years of yearning and searching for it, I finally seem to have found it. I spent the day doing a whole lot of nothing with the man I love and feeling immensely grateful for his unquestioning acceptance of who I am, complicated past and all. He is, in every sense of the word, my partner, and I'd be absolutely lost without him. We laughed, cooked together, ate Christmas dinner, and made plans for the weeks ahead. I can honestly say it doesn't get much better than that, nor could I have asked for more. Christmas doesn't have to be the big, boisterous, shiny occasion it was when I was a kid for it to still be as perfect as anything ever gets in this life.
I guess I must have been relatively good this year because the gifts I can neither appraise nor quantify have been plentiful. The greatest of all these gifts is, without a doubt, love. Thanks to love, I can now look forward to future holiday seasons with a smile. Thanks to love, Christmas is once again one of the most truly wonderful times of the year. And thanks to love, optimism and excitement have taken the place of stubborn opposition to holiday happiness. To simply call myself "lucky" doesn't do justice to this new reality; it fails to pay proper tribute to what is nothing short of a major turning point in my life. For the first time in years, the thought of a "happy" new year doesn't seem so far-fetched...in fact, I'm looking forward to it.
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