Nine

I know I don't corner the market on mixed feelings about Christmas. People the world over lost their loved ones near the holidays. I mean, millions of people die every day. You would hope that you'd get a break from death around Christmas, but that doesn't happen.

Nine years ago on Christmas Eve, my father died. And if you look back on my blog, you'll have read the story. You might have even heard me tell it. So I don't need to rehash it here. My two older kids were 5 and 1 years old at the time. They don't remember a Christmas time that there wasn't a sad Mommy in the mix. This was 9 years ago. Isn't time supposed to heal all wounds?

For me, it manifests in me dragging my feet in getting ready for Christmas. Those traditions that we are so careful to cobble together for our families, to make our own stories for the kids to reminisce about when they're adults, I push off to the last possible second. I avoid the smell of a real tree as much as possible, because sometimes the scent brings back the grief strong and present instead of suppressed and in the background. I get that scent and it hits me hard in the chest.

Three years ago, my uncle took his departure front he stage. Just days before he died, I told him that I was finally feeling like I could do Christmas again. That maybe the grief had become a quieter note in the song of the season. Only to have my uncle bring grief right back to the foreground.

Thanks.

So it was with dark humor we coped with my last uncle in the family of the originals entering the hospital at Thanksgiving. No, Uncle John didn't ruin Christmas this year. However, all of us got nervous about it. His daughter Sham thought that maybe her dad went into the hospital to maintain his Star Rewards status at Pali Momi. He almost made it through 2011 without a single hospitalization.

Next year is the tenth anniversary. I'll be in Hawaii for that Christmastime. Not sure how I'll deal with that. I've got no insights today. No great revelations. Just that I'm glad that it is almost over.