Holidays Without Her

No, Susan was not physically here with us during the holidays, but everywhere I turned, there she was! I saw her in the colors of fall: the brilliant golds, warm oranges and bursts of crimson…she really loved those colors.

For Christmas I borrowed a tree and decorated it with new colors that I loved…colors I had never allowed myself to use. In fact, this year I never even unpacked the sentimental ones; don’t know when…if…I ever will. Susan’s cross, the blingy ornament that I bought her two years ago, appeared. Funny thing, it never had hung on a tree; Susan wouldn’t let it. She kept it in her purse and would periodically rediscover it as she stirred through her purse looking for…um…something. Sometimes she would stir through her purse for hours and in the process, rediscover the cross over and over. She would hold it in her hand and stare at it as if she had never seen it before. She would smile at it as one might smile at the first sight of a long lost friend. “Look Karen!” she would turn it my way with pride on her face. “Wow Susan! That is beautiful!” I would say over and over.



Susan’s holiday snow globe somehow found its way back into our living room. Periodically I would hear its music begin to play and turn to look…instead of Susan’s hands holding the glass ball and her face looking dreamily at the little manger scene inside, there were little hands winding the music up and shaking the snow. Susan’s little snow globe had become my granddaughter’s happy pleasure. Everywhere, Susan was here…her name was still on gift tags… her favorite holiday cookies sat unbought on store shelves. Susan still made us laugh; we laughed as periodically someone would spontaneously say, “Remember when she…” She made us cry because we miss her. She made us smile; just quiet smiles- the knowing ones. So yup, we made it through the first holidays without her, in a way.

Susan's Bedroom

I wonder whom Susan is talking to in her bedroom, or whom she thinks she is talking to. I can hear her through the wall as if she is having a conversation with somebody in there. I can’t make out the words that she is saying- only that it is her voice and that she seems calm with a matter- of -fact attitude about this conversation. I hear her clock chiming the music to the Beatle's song Yesterday. I find myself half singing the words from the song that seems so fitting right now:
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
.

Sometimes she talks about Deogracias visiting her when she sleeps. She says that he taps her on the shoulder to get her attention. They often discuss why one of them cannot go where the other one is: heaven and earth, dead and alive. Sometimes he kisses her and tells her he misses her. When she tells us about it the next day we can tell that she misses him too. It seems that her memories are mostly good ones of him and her; the ugly part has disappeared from her brain and is replace by kindness. That is as it should be, I suppose.

Susan may have forgotten, but the rest of us remember well their ups and downs. They now seem so long ago and far away. But the clearer memories of the past remind me of how she stood firm and staunch while they were together; until the day when he was gone and she was alone. Even then she tried to be strong; but looking back it is clear how much she needed him, she just never knew it. Any memory of their separation has mercifully erased itself from her mind. So it may well be that it is He whom she is speaking with in the bedroom. Maybe he has once again come to tell her that he misses her and to ask her to come to him. One day she will, but not today.