Am I the Grinch?

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." - Dr. Seuss

Christmas came and went in the blink of an eye, for me it did anyway. It doesn't have anything to do with the gifts or the parties or the "stuff"...not like it used to. Do I miss the Christmas times of my youth when I awoke and raced downstairs to gaze upon stockings so full of unknown surprises....filled to the brim with candy and treats and small gifts? Gasping at the mass of presents under the tree as far as my eyes could see? Some wrapped...some too big to be wrapped and hoping they were ALL for me! Maybe a little. I think what I miss most of all is the connection that day/time brings. The meaning behind all the "stuff".

When you get older and your alone you don't really get that....connection anymore. You don't have that magic moment that makes you feel like you are a part of something bigger. So maybe I do sympathize a little more with the Grinch than I'd like to admit. When I wake up on Christmas morning there is no magic moment...no WOW for me. It's a day like any other day for me and if I'm not with family, I still have to make my own coffee. It's just another day.

This year seemed particularly different to me. Maybe because I worked retail and I got to witness first hand the amount of "stuff" people were buying. It's a little crazy really. I mean don't get me wrong, I LOVE presents and I LOVE to give them....but I can't help but wonder why we stress ourselves out so much and spend so much for that moment of waking for that magic feeling? Is it worth it? Can't we do something year round or at unplanned times in the year to show the special someone's in our lives they matter? I know we can...but why don't we? Why don't I?

I seem to have lost my mojo for holidays this year. Even my own birthday went by without much of a clatter...that's not really me but it seems, it may be who I have become. Do we really become someone completely different out of the blue?

Another year's end is fast approaching. I used to love New Year's eve. Loved the possibility of a new start, that maybe THIS year I will be someplace where confetti falls from the ceiling at midnight and that maybe, just maybe this year will be amazing! But it seems, that one year just sort of blurs right into the next and nothing much changes...maybe the faces of those around you change....you lose some friends...gain some new ones...you move, have new neighbors....give up going out with certain groups or suddenly decide to not spend time with others. Faces and places change but really what remains central is you...you are the center of your own Universe.

What changes can one really make in a year? I mean some simple ones but the big, internal, life changers take more time. I was told this story recently of a man who made a list of life questions for his father in an attempt to get to know him better. Because, as we all know, we age as fast as our parents do and they surely won't be around forever. In an attempt to get to know more about his father he made a list of 37 questions...he gave the list to his father and hoped, one day, to have answers. Of course you know the father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly but as the son was cleaning out his fathers house, he came across the list and most of the questions had been answered by his father....he found great comfort in this. Having lost my own father this year, made me wonder a bit...who was he really. What I thought I knew of him is all I will ever have. I don't know what made him happy, what childhood memories he took with him into his life. I don't know if he was living the life he chose or did his life choose him? What did he feel about his time in the military? Why did he pick my mother to marry? Was he really always the sad, unhappy, mean, selfish man I knew at the end? Was there ever a time in his life where he wanted something more? Different? Did he even try? Made me think....when I'm gone, what might someone want to know about me?

Since I don't have children of my own to leave a legacy too, or to take care of me when I'm old I will count on my nieces and nephews...they will have to take care of their Auntie. We all have a unfinished life story, what does our final chapter look like?

I want to ask my mom somethings before she's gone: 1) What's been your greatest moment? 2) What is your biggest fear? 3) Why did you marry dad? 4) When were you at your absolute happiest? 5) What advice would you have to pass on? 6) If you could change one thing, what would it be and why?

I did a mini version of this with my grandmother when I had some alone time with her before I moved her to Minnesota, where she died shortly after. I remember asking my grandmother if you could change one thing in your past, go back and do one thing differently what would it be and why? At first she laughed it off, and said what does it matter, it didn't happen, you can't change what is. You just have to make the best of the life your given and be happy with that. I remember thinking to myself - that's true but didn't she have hopes or desires or dreams or wants that never happened no matter the life she had? Couldn't she have possibly wanted anything more that what she had? On the last night in Florida, after I had spent a week in 90 degree weather packing up her life and her house, giving away almost everything she owned, having had to watch an 86 year old woman say good bye to the life and friends she had known, it occurred me, that who we ARE is composed of more than just our thoughts and dreams. All the "stuff" we accumulate through our lives is part of us to.

I tossed away furniture, pots and pans, brooms, Tupperware, and stuff that to me had no meaning. It was just clutter that there was no room for in my mothers house where I was taking my grandmother to. I cleared out all the "stuff " in her life with careless abandonment because I was focused on getting her home....to my mom's house...and all this "stuff" was just clutter in my way. I never gave any thought that that meant anything to her. Looking back at that last night we spent in Florida, in a cheap hotel right by the airport sitting in the warm night air I wish I were more present in that moment. I wish I had more thought to when, quietly as we sat rocking in the swing on the porch in the hot Florida night my grandmother said "I would have said I love you more".

I was exhausted, tired and emotionally drained from packing up and making decisions about all her stuff and lying to her about it....yes Grandma, I packed those up...when in reality I threw them away or gave them away. I got rid of her life in 3 days with barely a thought of what things meant. The pots and pans she owned her whole married life with my grandfather who had passed 10 years earlier, the furniture they bought together, the lamps they picked out, everything had to go - I was so focused on getting home I forgot her life, her stuff, her things - mattered. I said what are you talking about Grandma? Taking a long puff on her Salem 100's cigarette, she said....I would have said I love you more. I looked at her quizzically thinking - wow, she has really lost it now.

She stared off into the night sky and simply said: you asked me what would I change if I could go back and do one thing differently - I think it matters that people know you love them. And not just saying it...showing it. She then continued to smoke her cigarette until it was a tiny nub of the filter left and we didn't say another word - we just sat there rocking. I can't remember exactly what thoughts were going through my head but they sure weren't OMG! That's amazing..I want to remember that...I want to carry that back into my life, I want to tell people I love them....and not just tell them...show them. Actions speak louder than words. But I didn't...not then anyway...I trudged on with my life and continued on as if any day were the same as the last.

The last time I spoke with my grandmother was a few days before she died. I remember visiting her in the nursing home, a little angry that I had to go...that I HAD to go visit. It early January and she had been in there since right after Thanksgiving. Her body started shutting down and just before Christmas they told us it wouldn't be long. So we went...everyday to see her and to hold her hand and to tell her we loved her. She stopped eating and really responding in early January and we knew the time was close. The day she died, January 14, the nurse came into her room and said Hi Annie, what are you going to do today? My grandmother hadn't really responded much in the last few weeks...but that day she said she was going home to Chicago. The nurse said well have a good trip. At some point after the nurse left my grandmother slipped quietly away and went home to Chicago. That is where my grandfather was buried and grandma decided it was time to go home. She just slipped away and that was that.

I hadn't thought much about that moment or that time until this Christmas. Maybe because it was the first Christmas without one of my parents...it was harder for my sisters than it was for me, which made it hard for me. Who wants to see anyone sad? It made me think of my Christmas's as a child and all the excitement that came with Christmas morning and then my grandparents coming over and the smell of the house as Christmas dinner cooked and we all played with all our new stuff and how happy we all were...for just that teeny block of time. I miss that. I miss that moment with my sisters and brother....the sound of a house full of people and the smell of Christmas dinner and the fresh tree.

So perhaps the Grinch was right after all - it can come without ribbons or tags. It's not about the packages, boxes or bags. Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.