Wishing You a Beautiful New Kaleidoscope!

The nerve of those Whos. Inviting me down there - on such short notice! Even if I wanted to go my schedule wouldn't allow it. 4:00, wallow in self pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30, jazzercize; 6:30, dinner with me - I can't cancel that again; 7:00, wrestle with my self-loathing... I'm booked. Of course, if I bump the loathing to 9, I could still be done in time to lay in bed, stare at the ceiling and slip slowly into madness. But what would I wear?  

 ~The Grinch

Someone has to play the role of the Grinch, but this year it's not me! Well, at least not that anyone will notice and I will still have my moments (lots of them) and I will still miss Brandon and my Dad and I will still wish my Christmas was a Norman Rockwell painting. As those close to me will tell you, I am historically a Grinch. It goes back to my Dad passing away on Christmas Eve when I was 16. Those who don't know me, expect me to be the Grinch after Brandon's passing. Ha, this year I will fool you all! Yes,  I have been known not put up a tree, no lights on the house, gone somewhere topical or not shopped until December 23rd. But, like each event in our kaleidoscope lives we choose what we see when we look into the viewer at our lives and we choose how we move with it.  And just like a kaleidoscope, if you twist even the smallest amount it changes everything. So again this year, I am twisting it to get a better view.

My Dad had been fighting cancer for years before he passed away. I vividly remember the scar that went 180 degrees around his torso where they removed half of one of his lungs. I remember watching his hair fall out and grow back; Seeing the radiation burns on his neck and staying at my Grandmas when I was sick so that he wouldn't get sick because the chemotherapy wrecked his immune system. So on Christmas Eve 1985 when we got a call from the hospital that he wouldn't make it through the day, I felt a huge sense of relief. Not that anyone ever talked about the fact that he might die, but it buzzed around us like in uninvited mosquito at a backyard BBQ. No, I didn't want to lose my father, but I had maxed out my 16 years of grieving skills and it was evident in my radically unhealthy social behavior. For years before my Dad died I always wished on the first star of the night.... Starlight, star bright first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, the first wish I wish tonight..... I never wished for him to be magically healed, even as a kid I knew better, I wished for my Dad not to suffer. And for years after he died I believed that his passing was the slap of reality I needed to pull me out of an abyss of bad teenage behavior. But then, I chose to look into my Kaleidoscope and believe that I had been ripped off. Other people heard Christmas carols and it made them happy and reminiscence of cheerful kaleidoscope colors. I heard Christmas Carols and remembered sitting next to my Dad's hospital bed watching the seconds tick by between his breathes wondering if each one would be the last as the seconds between each breath became longer.  Then, 15 years after my Dad passed away, my son Jason's kaleidoscope would clash with my own in a way that would require me to re-arrange what I was saw. When hearing that my father died on Christmas Eve, eight year old Jason exclaimed, "That is Awesome!!!!". Really, Awesome? He followed with even more glee and excitment, "How many people get to go to heaven ON Jesus' birthday!?".  And it clicked, my Dad was a spiritual man and according to the hospital staff he requested to be let go that day (for which my Mom is still angry about). So there you have it! What I saw as sad and taking away from the joy in my life, Jason saw (and helped me see) that my Dad, not the cancer, got to choose the vibrant colors of his kaleidoscope in those last hours.

Last year when I looked into my Christmas Kaleidoscope once again what I saw was a deep sadness of losing Brandon. No glistening bright colors, no twinkling shifts of the beautiful hues of the season. We didn't spend Christmas Eve at home. I rented a hotel room in downtown Denver and we all spent the night in an unfamiliar place and did things we had never done before. The big boys long boarded down the 16th street Mall beneath the bright lights of down town. We ate seafood and got takeout desserts from the Cheesecake Factory to eat in our room. We toasted Brandon with champagne after opening our presents on the 23rd floor of the Marriot Downtown. I hated it all and I hated my new Christmas Kaleidoscope...it wasn't fair.

Imagine my dismay when retailers started putting up Christmas decor even before Halloween this year. Apparently the Holiday Season would return again this year.  I shot back with...4:00, wallow in self pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30, jazzercize; 6:30, dinner with me - I can't cancel that again; 7:00, wrestle with my self-loathing...  But, somehow this year that didn't fit. It would be too easy to double up on the self-loathing and take seconds of self-pity. No, this year I devised a better plan... 4:00, pick myself up by my bootstraps; 4:30, fake-it til I make-it; 5:00, adjust the Kaleidoscope, 5:30 Run; 6:30, Appreciate ALL the colors in my Kaleidoscope; 7:00, Run (again) while wrestling with self-loathing (again) but win this time... Repeat as needed.

I have to admit that my change in disposition this year is made possible by a heaping serving of denial (not healthy, but necessary this year). I am careful to navigate the twists of my Kaleidoscope.  Knowing that there is a delicate balance of the hues I can tolerate without back sliding into the darkness of how much I miss Brandon. Navigating this new found boundary is a work in progress. I am always just a breath away from being crushed by it's weight. It will always be with me, missing my Dad and wishing for more time with Brandon.

None of us can take colors out of our Kaleidoscopes and often we don't get to choose what colors are created as a result of the twists and turns in life. But, I am grateful for all of them and I am grateful that they are all there for me to revisit, relish in, remember, turn back to and occasionally turn away from so that the other colors can shine more brightly.  Happy Holidays and I hope your kaleidoscope is full of twinkling shades of your perfect season blessed with all the things that soothe your soul and create peace in the New Year!