What Christmas Is All About

Tis the Season

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

And let's all remember the reason for the season - The Winter's Solstice! This year the solstice happens at 9:47 a.m. on Monday, December 21, 2009. That will be the local time here in California. That means it's the shortest day of the year also called the Yule and the Saturnalia. So remember your pagan rituals, burn a Yule log and drink mead, set up a tree and decorate it, etc.

The Day After Christmas

Yesterday was a strange day but not an unpleasant one. For the first time in longer than I can remember I was completely alone with absolutely nothing that I had to do and no place I had to be. All great luxuries for me that I enjoyed very much. I spent the day playing computer games, searching all over the web for whatever popped into my head and watching TV. It was also my first stress free day in at least 15 years.

I’m keeping an eye on myself because I’m doing much better than I ever thought I would when Darcy passed on. I’ve had 15 years to think about life AD (After Darcy) and the past year most of all because it was obvious time was running out. Perhaps that prepared me for now. Perhaps I’m just in denial and a full load of grief will suddenly hit me and turn me into jello. I don’t know. I do know that I’m feeling a lot of relief. I know that sounds terrible but when you’ve spent 15 years with a sword over your head to have it over is a relief. Hard to worry about anything when the worst has already happened. I am constantly seeing something where I think I have to tell Darcy about that but I can't do that ever again.

I have been crying a lot, especially when finding something emotional on TV or the Web, like this one; "Please don't divorce us." Photo after photo of families that don’t want to be divorced because Prop 8 passed, and make no mistake the Religious Reich is filing a law suit to have all such marriages done in California annulled. Could there be any better proof that Christianity is a religion of hate?

There were people who had worse Christmases than me. The 6pm news yesterday started out with 2 shootings at Christmas parties with 7 dead and two separate car crashes where the cars flipped over, several dead and several in the hospital in critical condition.

The worst one was Bruce Pardo. He had just gone through a bitter divorce so he went to the house of his ex-inlaws in Covina with 2 guns and a homemade flame thrower and wearing a Santa suit. He knocked on the front door, an eight year old girl opened it and he shot her in the face, then stepped inside shooting everywhere then using the flamethrower, the house eventually burned down. 6 people dead but the 8 year old is expected to survive. His ex and her parents are missing. Bruce then went to his brother’s house and killed himself on the front lawn. Very uncool all around, Brucie. You want to off yourself do it in your own place and don’t take others down with you.

Update: His ex and her parents were found, burnt to a crisp and hard to identify, they had to go by the teeth. Her sister is the only one of the family left. I can understand the kind of despair that brings someone to suicide but I simply can't understand the impulse to take others with you.

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Christmas

This is my first Christmas without Darcy since 1985. Back then we were just dating but she moved in at the end of January, after my sister Wendy & Earl’s wedding, which Darcy arranged. She was always the arranger, she got things done & took care of everyone around her.

Wendy died about 5 years ago and we lost touch with Earl after he moved back to New Mexico, but I sent him an email to an old address that I didn’t even know was still good. But it was and he called last night. It was good to talk to him after all this time, really cheered me up.

Probably the best thing to happen was Allan coming over. I called him Tuesday to let him know we were near the end if he wanted to come out and he did. Unfortunately she died just before he got here, but he stayed a while and we drank a six-pack of beer, ate chips and Allan told his stories. Fortunately, not the same stories he told in art school back in 1971 but new ones. For Allan everything is funny and a story, but it felt really good to laugh. I think it’s been 10 years since I had seen him although we talked on the phone a few times. It’s been months since I had a beer, too.

So Allan and Earl really cheered me up when I needed it. Part of why I think I’m taking this much better than I thought I would. I thought I would be a total basket case when she finally passed away but I’m OK.

And I think a lot of it is that I’ve had 15 years of waiting for this, part of it is that it really was time for her to go. All of last week she was just miserable, at night she couldn’t turn herself over if something hurt or she couldn’t breathe. She was so skinny that it hurt to lay on her ribs and several times she said; “Oh, Bear, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Meaning that her discomfort was so bad as to be unendurable and she couldn’t do anything to relieve it and was getting ready to call the paramedics. I gave her a vicodin for the pain each time and she was able to sleep but we both knew time was running out.

It's a relief that she isn't suffering any more.