Tag: Christmas

Flowers that Speak

It’s two days before Christmas, yet months removed from Halloween – the favorite holiday of one whose life was taken from us three months ago. A body failed her, but energy, strength, and courage did not. She endured. All the while, she fought through until the forces of “too much” overtook a seemingly impenetrable will. She left us holding her energy. It did not die.

This is Greta. A life force continuing on to this day … two days before Christmas.

… It is day when I have the chance to relax a bit and think through the past 90 days. Ninety days since a final exhale. It was the end of a spectacular life full of, yes, challenges … but exhaustive with extraordinary musical and artistic talent. She had those gifts to share. In the time given, I am glad to have accompanied her along the journey.

After all, it is the time to celebrate gifts.

Christmas poinsettias are strewn about in almost every church. Floral wreaths hang outside on doors brightly lit with festive greens and reds. I hear carolers gifting their music inside local restaurants while patrons drink seasonal, hot beverages through familial conversation. Neighborhoods are bustling with holiday lawn deer and crisp, winter grass reflects yesterday’s winter solstice.

All of this happening outside the very home in which I sit. There will be no tree or presents this year. By choice, the two occupants who reside here – myself among them – have decided to rest. We are a simple holiday event by ourselves. A father and son.

Over to my right are Greta’s flowers from Sunday, October 31st … Halloween. They are resting comfortably on four multi-level round stands. Noonday brilliance always comes in the sun porch windows to glance over the once colorful bouquets. At the insistence of the energy present, we can’t find our way, yet, to discard the stems and memories attached. We see the faded colors and cloudy water. These flowers were for Greta. Three months past her passing and two months since they were placed in her memory, they are hers … still.

It is her gift that keeps on giving. To the two occupants here, a daily chance to remember someone who made a huge difference. Those life-changing moments with her will accompany my experiences going forward … as these flowers eventually fade into a memory. For now, however, my personal season of loss and grieving is holding hands with a season of celebrating. Daily, I look upon four vases holding imperfect, flawed, aging … yes, dead flowers.

This is real energy. Real life. Real, deeply-felt pain with hope attached is the swirl of the grief season. Lifeless flowers speaking words in silence. They gift words to me.

Words from music rehearsals, lunches, and late-night discussions about the stars. Words about food choices, attire wear-abouts, and popular music. IQ arguments, career choices, and Hot Dawg toppings weren’t too far off topic if she wanted to discuss them. Talk show hosts, and certainly game shows, were at the top of the list.

I don’t think we pick what speaks to us after someone passes through our hands to the infinite universe. Stardust has its own plan once that happens. My crystal ball would not have said, “Greta’s flowers on the screened in back porch”, if I had one and pleaded with it soon after her death. Energy finds a way through.

I suppose we can find meaning in anything, if I was to stand on a sceptical soapbox here. Honestly, Greta loved daisies, anyway. I think any memory of her, by any means, is spectacular. On that I stand. Her gift to me was a different way of thinking. An openness to newness, as I like to say.

In light of her and the season, she will never be “too much” or not enough. I will always want one more moment that shall never be. Her colors will never fade and the water in which her spirit rests is eternally clear. For now, frail flowers continue to gift quiet words to me. At the time when these are to be discarded, Greta will give me rest in my words … and peace beyond the holiday.

Until then, I will sit here. Quiet words bounce across from my right. Strange? Perhaps.. No more odd than two occupants with nothing to do during a simple holiday. A father and son.

We miss her. Dad in his way. I look over to my right to miss her my way. Two days before Christmas. What a wonderful gift to remember and open every day.

Thank you, Greta.

B.A.D. in Delectably Virtuous Way

OK. So, we’re stuck here. Here? Yeah. Freakin’ 2020 … behind masks – out of our favorite restaurants and away from loved ones for many blips on digital calendars. That time being about nine months to date since the droplets hit our shores. Wow. What a tidal wave of emotions and opinions those little molecules turned out to be. This month last year, none of us saw the tsunami coming across magnificent oceans. Seemingly, we were immune from these viral outbreaks happening elsewhere.

Not so fast. Near Seattle, Washington state, then eastward bound … ashore it was – as we were unsure of our future. New York, hit hard … state-wide lockdowns, worry, concern for the elderly and immuno-compromised. All of it so new.

Firmly planted now with so much more knowledge and vaccines to help us, we still remember those lost in the mess of mis-understanding. They have no Christmas or holiday to celebrate with us because stubbornness overtook logic and reason, politics became a barrier – not a bridge, and habitual day-to-day living was too difficult a lane for some from which to turn.

This virus is a nasty sort. It takes from and gives very little back. We are in complete control of those facts. I also know you are aware life has a positive side, too. As we end 2020 – a year of absolute, mindbending twists we never knew possible – this seven day stretch between the 25th and 31st is absolutely B.A.D. in a delectably virtuous way. Remindably so every time a plateful of sweetness slides onto your decorated holiday table already stacked with fudge, brownies, cookies, and cakes lovingly baked by neighbors and friends.

It’s a season of giving, not of taking – the outright opposite of the selfish viral objective. It took so much from us; however bleak, our neighbors, friends, and loved ones are taking this week to turn that bad into a new version of BAD. A most excellent version all of us need.

Lovingly Bought. Acquired ingredients with you in mind. Sugar, spice, and everything nice … oh, and chocolate for sure. If not raw materials for scratch work, maybe time invested buying carefully selected candies from your favorite confectionaire? Whatever the outlay of kindness on your behalf, it was for you …

Lovingly Accepted. You can’t help that full feeling in your belly. Not the over-stuffed, jammed turkey graveyard push-away from the table at Thanksgiving full, but the overwhelming joy – smelling the deep, dark chocolate sitting only inches away. That snickerdoodle, powder cookie, peanut-butter icing waft-wonderful scent waving at you is too irresistible for you to not value the time and energy invested. Waving back through the cellophane or tin seems not enough at the moment. A return call or text within a week or so is appropriate, but first you must …

Lovingly, in a kindly gentile way, Devour. Head first, anything chocolate head of the line, no holds barred, all plates emptied by 12:01 a.m. January 1st, 2021. You’ve done your very best playing by the rules since March 15th. All of us have, and will continue to do so on behalf of our neighbors and friends. This week, alone with your family and that table full of sweetly chunkiness, dive in! Let the crumbs and sugar pieces fly. Rumba later.

For now, enjoy what’s in front of you. If that’s two cookies at a time? So be it. Be B.A.D. for once in your lockdown life this week – Oreo’d in between thorough, stiff rules designed, yes, for our collective safety, but really hard to emotionally handle. I get it. I’m right there with you looking at a tin , now happily half-full of chocolate covered popcorn and pretzels graciously sitting on a table only two feet away (within a comfortable three feet range from shoulder to tips of my very sticky fingers) Ugh. Those little sweet treats are so freakin’ delicious! Absolutley NOT going to last until 2021.

Oh, but don’t worry. I have more around, as I’m sure you do. Bags, plates, and pans – because I have to guess concerning your sweet situation. You’re not supposed to be good right now. I expect you to be bad in a delectably virtuous way. Eat all of it. Lick the plates with passion, tap every nugget, and don’t let this week pass without enjoying every single crumb.

Someone out there is mixing up ingredients for you to appreciate the moments. We can’t see what they’re folding for our futures, but we know there must be something special we can count on being magically injected into the dough. Gobble up a lotta love the next time they knock on your door.

I will because I have awesome friends who know my lack of restraint when piles of cookies remain open in my path. Heartfelt heaps that not-so magically disappear between the 25th and 31st of December. A week when all of us probably bought sugar and spice to make treats for those we love and respect as well.

Today is about giving of ourselves to others. Not only today, but also this week … this month … and especially this year. We’ve given our time, effort, resources, and love to those who need it the most. For some, the virus has been extremely cruel … all take and no give. That’s what it does.

We aren’t that. Our ingredients, mixed in, are virtuous, respectable, and shared in such a good way – on a plate for everyone we admire, and even those we may not. To give of ourselves is the highest honor one can grant to another. A goodness not found in one droplet these days, but found in a tsunami of sweetness as every wave of kindness comes ashoredly on our hearts this season – and across our palates in the form of delectable, really BAD treats.

But, oh they’re so good. Chocolate chip cookies with nuts … just in case you’re stopping by.