Week 20 Review: Love and Loss

This week has been filled with ups and downs. I gave in to manic energy baking popovers and shopping for charitable donations. I ran (for exercise) outdoors twice for the first time in months, once in the snow. My ears and fingers were numb with cold, but I felt wonderful. I wanted to smile but every time I did, my ear buds fell out, so I worked to keep my face as immobile as possible. I explored my passions and their attendant pitfalls. I also took my daughter to do a free craft and attended my husband’s boss’s Christmas party last night and actually enjoyed it.

On the way to the party, we passed a house with so many lights on every shrub, tree, and post in the yard, that we thought it must be a business of some sort despite its position in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The valet parking signs reinforced this idea. At the party, we learned that it was, in fact, a private residence at which a lavish party was taking place. The owner of the house spends what onlookers estimate at about $10,000 each year having lights put up in the yard. After the season is done, the company that installed the lights comes out and throws them all in the garbage. Apparently, it’s cheaper than storing them for the following year. The lights weren’t tacky or overdone. They were quite beautiful, and we admired them from our car. But it certainly raised the hackles of that self-righteous voice inside me.

While we were at the Christmas party last night, my husband’s grandfather, who has been ailing recently, died in his home with his family around him. We learned about his passing when we got home, although we’d suspected it when my husband saw he had missed a call from his dad on his cell. I sat on the couch and held my daughter while she cried after we’d told her what had happened. This morning, my husband bought a last-minute ticket to fly to Michigan for the funeral. The rest of us would have joined him if it weren’t for the expense and the discomforts of traveling just before Christmas.

So, right now I’m feeling sad, and trying not to feel too anxious about being on my own with the kids for three days. And I’m also trying not to feel too selfish about feeling anxious about being on my own with the kids for three days.

Last night was also my husband’s family’s annual Christmas party in Michigan. Between memories of the joy we felt the one time we were able to attend that party and our sadness at the loss of my husband’s grandpa, Michigan is feeling very, very far away today. While I’m sad that the kids and I can’t go along, I’m glad that my husband will be able to be with his family to experience the pleasure and pain of sharing love and loss and celebrating the life of a man we will all miss dearly.