Gary and I were honoring his late mother’s birthday on December 2 when I received a call that would catapult us into a surreal odyssey. My mother had quietly passed away in Chicago.
I secured airline tickets for us to leave Seattle Monday morning and to return on Saturday. Over the weekend, there were many telephone calls with my brother and sister as we made preliminary funeral arrangements and notified people of her passing. Monday through Wednesday was a buzz of activity, meetings, and decisions. The viewing at the funeral home was scheduled for Thursday.
Then we were notified on Thursday that my father’s second wife, our stepmother, was taken to the hospital following a massive stroke. Emotionally, we added shock to grief as greeted and spoke to the people who came to my mother’s wake.
Following the funeral service on Friday, the children and grandchildren went in three full cars to the hospital to be with dad and stepmom. As per her health care directive, stepmom entered hospice with a Do Not Resuscitate Order. The physician’s best estimate was that she would likely pass away in two or three days given the severity of her stroke. With that said, family members cancelled their flights home on Saturday and started planning funeral number two for early the following week.
Stepmom entered a hospice facility on Friday evening and the vigil began. Nobody told stepmom that she was only expected to survive for two or three days, so she remained on this side of the veil until the following Friday afternoon, eight days after she was moved to hospice. And because she transitioned late in the day, the funeral we thought might happen as late as Saturday was moved to the following Monday, December 20.
Because there were so many family members in town, Gary and I opted to stay in a hotel for five nights and, because most of them remained in town for the second funeral, those five nights turned into eighteen nights. We lived our own version of the movie Groundhog Day. Every day we woke up in the same hotel room. Every day we went down the same elevator and heard the same loop of Christmas Carols being played throughout the hotel. Every day we ate at the same breakfast buffet and had the same server (except on his days off). And every day we looked out the window at the snow and wished that we were home.
The day before the second funeral, Gary developed a nasty head cold with a fever. On the morning of the funeral, I felt his forehead and announced that he was to stay in bed that day, and I went without him. On Tuesday, I talked to the nice folks at the airline to arrange for the best flight to Seattle that I could get. It turns out the best flight for us would be Friday afternoon, Christmas Eve. I knew by Friday that Gary would be well on his way to being…well.
No such luck. We arrived home Christmas Eve to no tree, no decorations, no presents (except for the two Kimberlee gave us when she picked us up at the airport), no signs of Christmas any where, and Gary’s hacking away because his head cold took up residence in his chest.
But just being in our own place made us feel better. As a famous Dr. Seuss character once said, “It came without ribbons. It came without bags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags. Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas means a little bit more.”
To all of you who are not having the best Christmas ever. For those of you who lost loved ones this year. For those of you who lost jobs this year. For those of you who have challenges in your life whether financial, relationship or health-related. You are not alone. Be kind to your fellow humans for you just don’t know what they are dealing with today. A blessing to all this Christmas Day for we all need one.