Month: December 2007

Please, don’t stop coming to my blog! I’ll write again. I promise!

According to Ben Franklin, there is some virtue in going to sleep early and waking up early. But Ben Franklin didn’t have the Internet or electricity, so what did he know? How does it matter when, exactly, we accumulate our hours of sleep? Right? Can I hear an “amen”?

This time of year is so busy for me. I sang a song at the Church Ladies’ Christmas Salad Potluck last night . . . and for some reason, I wasn’t sitting quite at the center of the piano and thus, my hands were to the left and my microphone to the right . . . and then I could see someone watching me to my immediate left and somehow, I was distracted by all this. I was just happy to be done with the whole thing.

The funny thing is that I am on a 3-week preplanned eating program (see my other blog for details) and I brought my own salad. The lady next to me kept looking at my plate suspiciously, like she couldn’t quite figure out why I had one thing and not an assortment of salads like everyone else.

Sundays are always crammed full. My husband usually leaves by 5:30 a.m. and often doesn’t return until after dark. I spent the afternoon cleaning so that I could put up Christmas decorations. I have had the same fake tree for ten years now–ever since the winter I was 7 months pregnant at Christmas and decided I could not face struggling to make a real tree stand up straight in its stand.

However, after all these years, I am sick to death of my fake tree and plan to upgrade to a prelit fake tree–but not until I can buy one 50% off after Christmas.

So, I put all the branches on the fake tree while my 5-year old daughter harassed me. “Is it time? Is it time?” She was dying to hang ornaments. After all these years, I’ve learned to string the lights as I put on each layer of branches. Efficient, if not Martha Stewart approved. For whatever reason, two hefty strings of lights absolutely refused to light up. Odd, since they were purchased new after a similar dead light fiasco a year or two ago. I settled for a string of colored lights (put on first, before I discovered the dead colored lights), followed by white lights. I topped that with the only other lights I found, another string of colored ones.

The kids hung all the ornaments with no thought to balance or symmetry or beauty.

So my tree is a pathetic disaster, but if you squint your eyes, you can’t tell. So, squint your eyes.

I light a scented Yankee candle and you’d never know the tree was fake. So squint your eyes and breath deeply.

Now, continuing my backwards glance, let’s recount Saturday. On Saturday I took my daughter to a birthday party, a “princess” birthday party where all the girls wore princess costumes. (Long two hours for me!)

After the party, I ran errands–hello, CHRISTMAS IS COMING. I am so behind on the whole Christmas shopping thing.

Friday was the funeral in Seaside. I drove three hours each way. . . and didn’t even catch a glimpse of the ocean. I was in such a hurry to get home because we had plans to see a movie (“Bella”–great movie!). I was home for thirty minutes before we left again.

And now . . . Christmas is coming in three weeks. Three weeks? Three weeks. And then . . . it will be all over, time to take down the tree, donate it to Goodwill and live happily ever after. And turn 43! My birthday’s in January . Start saving your money so you can buy me something real nice.

Post-Funeral Thoughts

A life well-lived is one sensible decision after the next. A life well-lived is full of kept promises, even when they hurt. A life well-lived ends and those left behind cry, but their tears are not bitter, but rather sad tears of loneliness and loss. We cry because we realize just the swiftness of our journey on this planet, how few sunsets remain in our lifetimes, how much time we have squandered.

Her life well-lived was extravagant, full of beauty. She loved her husband, her children, her grandchildren. She loved her garden. She filled her house with lovely objects and her closets with fashion.

I will remember her jet-black hair, her meticulous make-up, her shiny bright smile. I did not walk up to the casket to peer at her lifeless form. I want to remember her alive and beautiful.

Watching her husband of 53 years stand at the white casket lined with pink broke my heart a little. He stood so tall, so distinguished in his suit, so composed, so still. He stepped back, then closer again. I averted my eyes from this private moment. He kept his promise to her, though the last years were bleak and her mind had fled. He was faithful and strong.

One of my other uncles delivered the eulogy, a message full of scripture and poetry and reminders of God’s love for us. The flowers were so gorgeous. I rested my gaze on them while I listened to the powerful words of a man I admire and love. I thought, “I would like him to do my funeral,” and then I realized that I would have to die young or he will have to live to be 150.

Funerals and weddings . . . so much alike, so vastly different. Flowers everywhere, men in suits. One is the beginning, the other the end. And endings are always so sad that if I start to cry, I may never stop.