how to relax over the holidays

Go to someone elses house. heh.

After some 20+ years of hosting ... Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas morning or Christmas brunch or Christmas dinner, Easter even Mothers day - perhaps all of these in the same year.
We had the unique opportunity to ...not.

This year my attractively-aging wife and I were hosted by our daughter - who seemingly loves to cook and entertain. She makes it all seem so effortless (and tasty). Ah, to be young.

This meant there was no holiday pre-clean. No shopping or cooking or basting and stirring. We didn't vacuum ...twice (thanks Free dog). We didn't rent tables and set up rooms in odd configurations to handle the masses. We didn't create a space for hors devours or a makeshift wine bar.

Instead - we lingered over coffee. We watched the parade, and scuffed around in jammies like it was a Sunday morning.

Later that day, we ate, we drank, we helped clear some dishes.

Then we stuffed ourselves into our car, and rolled home.

Where there was no post holiday cleaning, no crumbs ground into the furniture, no mountains of empties to rinse and put out. No dishes hidden under the sofa. Not a wine spill to be found.

I felt so lazy.

I could get used to this.

just when you thought....

I went over to my mom's this evening to meet a woman to sign a binder on her place.
I am the Executrix. I love the way that sounds... it makes me want to wear leather and furry handcuffs.

The contract has Hubbard clause because this woman needs to sell her place first.
I like her. She's a nurse, like mom. I hope she gets it.

But I was early. And I started to wander around.
And it started to get hard.

On the counter I found a tape and a player that my sister in law had left out for my brother to listen to. It was a tape from one of the many visits to one of my mothers many doctors. Sometimes, randomly she would bring along this little cassette recorder, because sometimes she didn't remember what the doctors told her.
I don't think she ever listened to any of the tapes after the appointments.

My sister in law set it out so we could hear her voice again.

This appointment was with a surgeon from Yale. One of the best. He specialized in difficult cases. She visited him a couple times. This visit was shortly after a year on chemo, and a few months before her death. On this tape I heard him tell her that she was still inoperable. That damned tumor was still sitting right on her vena cava. A major artery. And this position is what made surgery out of the question.
But - he told her all was not bad. The chemo was shrinking her tumor. I heard her voice add that indeed her markers were down.
This was all good news. Reason for hope. He advised perhaps some radiation.
Don't rule that out.
You look good he remarked.
Stay positive. And by all means keep in touch, he told her.
He was lovely... this surgeon, with a delightful British accent and a gentle European way. He was so soothing, and confident, and gave her that knowledgeable hope - that she would only take from the best doctors.
He assured her. Even though he could not help her.

I was with her at this appointment. Sitting right next to her. I believe I was holding the little cassette recorder.
I heard the hope, along with the subtleties of fear in her voice on that tape.
I don't remember hearing that when we were there.

Family

What is family? Is it blood? Is it marriage?
Family can come to us in strange ways. Be open to these.

We lost a family member this past week. For our daughter she was blood - for my wife she was family by marriage - for me... well... she was just family.
Is it odd for the sister of my wife's ex husband to be family to us?
Yes.
Of course it is. But life is odd. Wrap your arms around oddity, people. Embrace and treasure the oddity.

Nancy was as unique as they come. She was one of the happiest people I have ever known. She and her husband, Marcus, were folks from a different era, tho not so much older than we. Marcus was that sort of able guy, who are all but extinct now, that can do it all. He built the house they lived in top to bottom - he could build a car out of spare parts laying around the yard -and he had several spare cars out there to choose from. He could wire and plumb and had sheds filled with stuff he 'might need' all over their property. Of course he actually used the stuff.
He loved life. He loved his wife.

She was an artist. Prolific. She painted and sculpted and beaded and drew and and wrote and pasted and cut and sewed always.
She laughed.
Alot.
Loudly.
She did not care what anyone thought of her. Some people claim to be this way - she really was. It truly didn't bother her.
She never threw anything away. Everything had a story, everything had a meaning.
She loved life, she loved her husband and her children and their lives.

Nancy was all heart. Marcus was all ingenuity - together they were ...

Friday night we gathered at their home on the hill with family and some friends around a colossal bonfire.

There was no wake, no church, no procession. It was exactly as she would have wanted it.
So much so in fact it truly felt like she was there.

I stood close to the fire, feeling the warmth, watching firelight lick the trees, a cool autumn breeze tossing little sparks around like fireflies. I looked toward the warm glow of their house seeing people gathered on the deck by a table scattered with bottles of booze and soda in various stages of consumption - she could have so easily been there in that group... chatting and laughing, telling her own stories. I bent my head to listen... to see if I could hear her loud cackling laugh.
I think I did.

I wandered up to the house for a refill. At the table on deck I lifted a wine bottle to the moonlight to see if it held another glassful. I felt her presence there so strongly, I turned to see if she was looking over my shoulder, perhaps to check if there were enough for two glasses in that bottle of red.
I am certain she was.

When we left, we hugged, we cried again, and as we drove away I looked back up the driveway as if I would see her waving goodbye and then turning to clutch Marcus by the arm and head back to her party, and the roaring fire, and her family.
I wish they had.

Peace.