It's Monday, December 7th, and it's raining! I love it! It has me drifting off, slowing down, and enjoying the moment. It's not the typical thing to do during this time of year. Too often we're speeding up trying to check as many things off our "to do" list. I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to put my feet up and think about how lucky I am. And I'm going to send you my family reflection letter that I wrote in 2006. I read it every year. My mom died in 2008 just before her 92nd birthday. She continues to be my inspiration. Put your feet up and breathe in the moment. I'm sending you the best. xoxoxoRoleen
She’s our Gift
Three Christmases ago,
everything changed in my family and what once was a joyful holiday became one
of fighting and confrontations and a whole lot of bad feelings. If it weren’t for my mom, I don’t think
we could have rallied through the day and the long ride home was spent on
trying to figure out how we were going to save the family. My mom had turned 90 years old, filled
with 90 years of wisdom, and I was confident that with her as our guiding
light, my sister, Nancy, and I would come up with some ideas for us to come
away from this experience with a positive outcome.
After some negotiating, it was decided that at our Easter
gathering at my house, we would exchange names for Christmas and instead of
buying gifts, we would take the months ahead to find out as much as we could
about the person whose name we had drawn and present the information and a
little “something” that was symbolic to the group. It was a new concept for us. We agreed we had become trapped into the monotony of buying
meaningless gifts in order to check the names off the list (though I always
thought my gifts were pretty clever!) The exercise forced me to see that I
had lost touch with who my nieces and nephews had become as they entered their
adult years. I was still their
Auntie Ro but they had so much more to offer me than I took time to know.
That first Christmas back together was still a little
stiff. After all, we were creating
a new tradition out of necessity and we were feeling unsure of what was
expected of us. One by one we
presented our “gifts” to each other and the laughter and love that we had once
taken for granted slowly began to refill the room. We were not ready, however, for my mother’s gift to all of
us. Earlier, I had noticed that
when Jim and I had picked her up that Christmas morning, she had more than her
allotted amount of bags. When I
reminded her that she wasn’t supposed to buy gifts for everyone, she brushed me
off. “It’s a surprise,” she said.
One by one we gathered around as “Grammy” pulled out plain unwrapped plastic
boxes each with a bow taped to the top.
She called our names and as we reached for our “surprise” she instructed
that we should all wait until each had received our package. On cue, we lifted up the tops of the
plastic boxes. The room was almost
silent as our eyes focused on the present inside. And what a gift!
There were years and years of memorabilia complete with poems, drawings,
letters of birthday greetings, letters with “I love you” written everywhere and
even letters of apologies all done in our own hand. There were photos that had us laughing and photos that had
us crying. She was gifting us with
our own childhood memories and it was a magical! In a moment, we were connected in a way so much more
powerful than a gift from Macy’s. . . and the healing began.
Just when we thought there was no topping this
surprise, the next year “Grammy” blew us out of the water when she pulled out
three shopping bags filled with letters.
With all of us gathered for this new surprise, my nephew opened the
first envelope. As he began to
read the handwritten words that began with “My dearest Rose”, he stopped and
looked at all of us. Could my mom
be sharing the love letters my dad had sent her while he was serving in
WWII? Real love letters filled
with the sweetest words and feelings of hope and desire and passion! My dad died just before I started The
New School-West and for the first time in a long time, I felt close to him
again. I felt closer to all of my
family, for that matter!
How simple it was. Unwrapped plastic containers of personal memories and three
brown shopping bags with handwritten notes of love . . . no expensive gifts, no
credit card bills and no long lines in the “returns here” department. My 90-year old mother, still so full of
wisdom, single handedly brought back meaning to our family’s holiday. I’m thinking. . .she’s our gift.