You didn’t want to be home for Christmas.
Lordy, did you not. You spent one Christmas abroad - a guy you
were dating in the UK invited you to stay with his folks - and gosh darned if it
wasn’t the best. His parents showered you with love, cheese plates and gin. His
mother cooked a spread worthy of an oil painting. There was no arguing, no
resentment, no tension over an uncle drinking too much or a brother sneaking
out back for a joint. You spent the afternoon at a pub on the beach, sipping cider in the sunshine, wearing nothing but a sweater (well, and pants,)
wondering why, exactly, you’d ever spend Christmas with your own family again.
image from www.comedycard.co.uk/blogs/news with the hope that they don't mind too much.
And yet, for many reasons, you’ve found yourself back home for
the holidays every year since. Even this year, although less than one month ago, you
were on a white sand beach in the Coromandel, New Zealand, wearing shorts and
flip flops, wondering how early in the day was too early for ice cream.
You had to come home. You had things to deal with. And when you
booked the ticket, you had a strange feeling that there would be reasons you'd want to be around this Christmas.
At the beginning of November, you learned that your aunt,
the woman who used to tape record made-up songs with you when you were a kid and
give you the rings off her fingers, had cancer. At the end of November, you
found out that your dearest friend’s dad – a man you’ve known three quarters of
your life – had been in the hospital for a month with a failing heart. And then
there were the issues you had face in your own life when you got home, issues
you’re still not ready to write about on this blog.
Stop being so dramatic, you told yourself. What about the
families of the children in Pakistan? Syria? What about Uganda, for godsakes? What
would they have to say about you and your aging loved ones, struggling along
with their first world diseases and emotional angst? And yet, as you
re-enter the “real” world, you find yourself watching people –
neighbours, families in strip mall parking lots, moms pushing strollers in
supermarkets – and being certain that they’re having the Christmas you’ll never
get, all love and laughter and cable-knit sweaters and fluffy snowfalls. When you reunite with friends, you try to be upbeat. You remind
yourself how much worse it could be. And yet, despite everything, you can’t
shake the feeling that this is not fair.
*
Two weeks after you returned, your aunt had surgery to get part
of her colon removed, as well as all of her reproductive organs, in case the cancer
has spread.
Now, as you walk into her hospital room, you have to
physically force your mouth from dropping open. She looks as if she’s aged 20
years. Her normally animated face is drawn and gaunt, her once-sparkling eyes
are shadowed. She is hunched over and frail, and so drugged up she can barely
speak.
You hold her hand, now ringless, and try to think of things
to talk about. You ask how she’s feeling, whether she’s sleeping, and if she
has any appetite, even though the answers to all these questions would be obvious to anyone with more than two brain cells.
“At least you’ll be home soon!” you chirp.
One of the other
women in the room doesn’t make it to the bathroom in time, and the stench is
otherworldly. You and your aunt roll your eyes and attempt to laugh, and she
winks and covers her nose with the top of her hospital gown.
She takes your hand again. Finally, you look her in the
eyes.
“This really fucking sucks,” you say.
Silently, she nods.
*
Despite everything you’ve seen, you sometimes can’t
shake the belief that bad things shouldn't happen.
People shouldn’t get sick. They shouldn’t get hurt. They shouldn’t
leave each other, and they shouldn’t die – especially not at Christmas. And if, god forbid, any of these events
should occur, you still struggle to look on the bright side of life. Right?
Talk about how it’s not that cold yet. About who won the game. About Michelle Williams’ hairdo. Even if, once in safely in the car or in the
closet or under the covers, you crumble.
You once read that depression isn’t actually sadness. It’s
the depression - the literal pushing down
of - emotions we deem to be undesirable. It’s the belief that we shouldn’t
experience fear, pain, anger, even hatred. That, simply put, we should not suffer.
*
Moments after you leave your aunt in the hospital, your friend’s father dies.
You soldier through the next couple of days, and, then, finally, find yourself reading young
adult fiction and eating stale oatmeal cookies in your pyjamas until 4pm. You avoid or cancel most social interactions. Instead, you bake.
When people ask how you are, you start to respond with, “I’m
glad to see you, but I’ve been better.” Amazingly, this doesn’t scare most of
them off. You put aside the youtube videos and books you’ve amassed about
positive thinking. Fuck positive thinking. You'll get back to it later. As Augustus Waters said, That’s the
thing about pain. It demands to be felt.
And the weird thing is, the more you stop trying to be anything
other than how you really are, the more moments of pure happiness pop up out
of nowhere. They last a few minutes or a few hours, then dissolve like paper
boats in a stream.
You visit your friend, a few days after the loss
of her father. She tells you how sometimes she’ll be carrying on through her
day, and then suddenly drop to the floor, crying so hard she can’t even
find the strength to move onto a piece of furniture. As she tells you this, her
eyes fill with tears. You reach over and take her in your arms, and she sobs. Your
tears fall, too. You remember, again, that no
matter how good the weather, how comfortable the couch you’re sitting on, and how
much worse other people have it, you can’t take her pain away, just like nothing and no one can take yours. So you just hold her and say, again and again, “I’m
here. I’m here.”