The Ghosts of Christmas Future
It’s the holiday season again. Our tree is up in all its glory: this time, it’s very lush instead of tall and skinny. The lights and baubles and little gold stars look beautiful, though there’s no angel on top. Instead, there’s a different one this time: my niece, jumping around, making noise and turning the living room in something like a sand pit, a mess of playful curiosity. There’s candy and cookies and drinks on the table, with my sister in law doing her best to prevent the girl from breaking glasses on it. Her grandpa is playing catch with her, smiling, hugging her and carrying her around while she’s holding on to her trusty plushie. This time, it’s a little white lamb. Prior to that, it was another animal. He’s kissing her on the cheek as if to make sure she remembers it when she grows up.
My father is 72 years old and it’s dawning on him he’s unlikely to be around when she reaches her teenage years. So now it’s all about making up for the memories he won’t get to share with her in the future. As she’s his only grandchild, he’s enjoying every minute. It invigorates this man whose physical and mental fitness are remarkable when compared to his peers, even to people younger than him. Ocassionally, in passing by the panels with obituaries, I take a peak: almost everyone is indeed younger, yet many look at least his age or worse. Some are smiling in those photos: they’re obviously in on the joke we call life after death. Awareness of mortality can be a great impetus for productivity and self-care. Having children around helps you to stay focused on priorities. I’m not saying childless people don’t have those. They’re just a different kind. To each their own, I guess.
Life is, in most cases, a one-way street unless you get resuscitated when the shit hits the fan. My worst fear is getting buried alive after an improperly established death. Allegedly there were cases where people wake up only to find themselves stuck underneath a marble slab, feeling the oxygen slowly leaking out of the confined space. The first tray of the usual holiday treats has already arrived in my kitchen and it’s too predictable to be exciting. There will be more and more of the same. I don’t really mind but I’m a picky bitch and you need more than one lame trick up your sleeve to kick me out of my britches. If you get to share it with the right people, it might as well be a bag of dried figs and it will still taste like heaven. That’s why stocking up on memories it’s so crucial. The only guaranteed form of eternity is an afterlife in the hearts of people that held you close and dear.
Recently on Facebook I read a very touching account of an elderly woman living in poor circumstances in a little village, celebrating Christmas at home in front of her fireplace with a dinner of a cabbage soup and a piece of bacon. Her cat is purring underneath the table and waiting for her own share of the meager menu. All the time she’s looking at the phone, full of hope her son, who lives abroad with his family, will call to ask how she’s doing. It’s clear that’s not going to happen but she remains hopeful, looking at the snow outside her house through the window she decorated with a string of colorful lights. While city folks are celebrating in their Christmas markets full of people and the air fragrant with mulled wine, these godforsaken backwaters are full of those like her, waiting in vain. Like a waiting room for death, she’s hanging on, maybe hoping to be put out of her misery soon enough. Then her cat will finally get a king’s dinner. What might the furry devil nibble on first? Her nose? Fingers? Devil may care.
At the family lunch yesterday, an aunt of mine shared stories of her own childhood. Her own background is much closer to lower working class than the middle one, yet it was her own personal experience. There were more kids back then in families than there are today. Only one of us millennials at the table had more than two children, the rest had one. I only come for the food because there’s rarely anyone who talks to me intentionally, there’s no common ground we share unless someone pulls out an old photo album and there’s a handful of anecdotes about each photo. I find it incredibly tiresome to play family with people people who socialize with me only during the holidays but the food makes it worth while. That’s because my presence is merely a coincidence, I’m just a drop in that gene pool. On the other hand, what we call chosen family is much more complex affair. It’s intentional and consequential. If it’s not mutually nourishing, you lose it.
The older you get, the more you get anxious about time and what you do with it. I see it in my father’s eyes every time he tells me what I mean to him, how much he loved my mom. When he hugs his granddaughter, it looks as if he was giving her that one missing hug simultaneously: my mom’s. This is why those people who discard their loved ones over petty politics don’t deserve anyone’s appreciation. Especially for the holiday season. Speaking of that, one of the reasons why many people feel a sense of anxiety or depression is what we were brought up with. Exposed to too many films convincing us how it’s supposed to be. My life is not a subplot from Love Actually, damn it. There’s nobody standing at my door, trying to spell out a declaration of love on big sheets of paper. Only in songs and movies is a one horse open sleigh a good idea. It’s even worse if the poor creature gets all gassy from bad food like the one from Seinfeld.
In Hallmark’s movie isle, every tree is covered in lights, ornaments and everyone’s happy and beautiful. In this vision, the air is fragrant with mulled wine. In reality, your burps smell like it after pillaging the buffet with mince meat-stuffed cabbage, roasted turkey and chicken soup. Followed by a mountain of gingerbread, brownies and apple pie. In the vision, the kids are sitting on the floor wearing matching Christmas sweaters around the tree. In reality, at least one of them pooped their diapers but you don’t notice it because scented candles mask the odor behind a lush curtain of cinnamon and anise. In reality, what you thought were candles about to set the flowers above them on fire, are actually harmless LED. Better focus on things you’ll be missing once those people are gone. Life is weird, it tends to get in the way of things. You never know if this is the last Christmas you’re spending with someone. This why you learn to take the bad and ugly along with the good and pretty.
There’s no Keira Knightley or Hugh Grant hiding in the wings, waiting to kiss you awake from the blues. We talk about the way how we used to wear our hair a lifetime ago. Parents were seemingly omnipotent, your mom knew her way both about the stove and hairdressing little children. How hard can it be? Just grab a pair of scissors and try not to cut off too much. Kids aren’t sheep in need of shearing, which doesn’t mean they aren’t just as noisy and equally in need of proper guidance. Also, just like sheep, they tend to come in herds when out and about. Hence stocking up on moments you’ll later rely on when it gets cold and you need a warm blanket to crawl inside is so important. Like a cushion keeping your back from breaking if life should make you tumble. Tell the people who are the closest to your heart why they’re there and make sure they stay. There’s a limit to how much emotional neglect one can take and you never know until you hit it.
While sometimes it does get a little overbearing, learning the subtle art of gratefulness is one of the most important lessons you’ll ever face. Many don’t pass this exam with flying colors, but it shouldn’t be so difficult to get it right.Just don’t be an asshole to strangers who don’t know how messed up you are. It’s none of their business to deal with it anyway. Get out of your fucking cocoon. There’s always a pair of hands somewhere, willing to pick up the shards of your broken spirit as long as you’re willing to put yourself out there instead of hiding your wounds. It doesn’t make you a hero but an emotional ticking bomb without a working timer. Children are wise about it: they don’t hide from kindness and recognize when it’s genuine. Unspoilt, they sometimes put their trust in undeserving hands, risking having their little kingdoms reduced to tatters. It’s the essential parts of your spiritual survival kit: empathy, kindness, respect and gratefulness. Only then will you, perhaps, entangle one of the world’s most fascinating mysteries: why are penises on ancient Greek statues always so disproportionately small?
