You can be in a crowd of people and feel alone at the holidays. It is easy to drift into Christmases long gone and fret over the missed family members whom your kids don't remember, and so you alone feel the loss. It is unexplainable to them and it isn't worth bringing up. Most of the time I can bury it, set it and forget it - kind of like the Ronco lost family of memories infomercial. It runs over and over in my mind but they are dead and gone and I have to come to terms that it is my loss only.
I found my Dad's old Timex watch, but it was only part of it and the guts and watchband were gone. I moved it from drawer to drawer never having the heart to pitch it even though it means nothing to anyone but me. One year I put an ornament hook on it and put it on the tree. It makes me happy - as though my dad is here somehow. Does anyone else in the family care so much? Probably not... but it is the little piece of my past for Christmas that I get to look at knowing my dad is in my heart.
He was such a nice man... a courtly man. You don't see too many of those anymore. He wore a bow-tie, walked on the outside of the sidewalk when you strolled with him on the street, always sent notes of thanks with his own monogrammed stationery, stood up if a lady came into the room, and would push in your chair after you came to the table. I was lucky to have known a man like that. At least I have his watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment