First and Last

Marking our life with one day in December

Christmas 2024 is in the past, the very recent past. It was the first Christmas without some of my family and friends - this is becoming all too common - but also the first Christmas with the joyful arrival of one adorable baby boy. I remember the first Christmases with each of my girls, always dressed in their special finery, something I believed to be of the utmost importance as a mother in those days. I sewed and I smocked my way to happiness. I thought. I can now remember the last Christmas with one of those girls, something I never expected.

December 1944 was my first Christmas. I was an infant, and while I have no memory of it, I know I spent that day in the warmth of my Grandmother’s house where my Mother and I lived. Like so many families that year, gathered around their tables, prayers were sent up for the safety of their fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands who were absent. Absent, and in the clutches of a War being fought at home and far away. In three months I would be an orphan, my mother a widow, and the world would change for our family.

1944 It was also my Father’s last Christmas. He spent it in East Anglia, probably having dinner with fellow airmen in the Officer’s Club. It was one of the coldest Decembers in history for Great Britain, and two days later he would fly his first mission into Germany. He would fly twenty more, including his last in March of 1945.

Christmas is a strong marker on the map of our lives. It is a day that we associate keenly with memories, milestones, losses, and, thank God, many joys. It’s also a day we may feel those losses most deeply.

When I see Santa in nearly every movie this time of the year, slinging that big bag over his shoulder, I wait anxiously as he drops it on the floor and reaches in. What will he pull out? I know, it’s always filled with toys, but I imagined it another way this year, wondering if it’s filled with next year’s troubles.

I will be mostly glad for January this year, well, every year. I like to cross the bridge from one year to another as soon as possible. Doing it with a sense of dread and pessimism is not advisable, but I can’t seem to shake either of those things yet. I leave behind a year of unbelievable disappointments, especially the 2024 election and the people who helped to bring it about. This leads me fearfully to what comes next for my country and the rest of the world going forward. I feel a heavy bag on my shoulders going with me into 2025.

I do have my methods to lighten that load. I’ll pretend the bag is filled with soil and nourishment for my garden. First chance, I will dump it on the ground and plant seeds in it, good seeds, flower seeds, and herbs. I’ll dust off my boots, clean and oil my shovel and trowel, sharpen my shears, and go about making the world a bit brighter here in my own garden.

In the words of Joni Mitchell at Woodstock a few years ago:

we are stardust

we are golden

and we got to get ourselves

back to the garden

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