Name One Person You Will Dearly Miss This Holiday by Beth Lord

Hard question to answer. There are so many people I miss my heart hurts when I remember these amazing people who touched my life. Here I am, it’s Christmas Eve. I’m with my husband, my kids and their husbands or beaus and Chris’s Mom and sister. We are in Victoria B.C. until Dec. 26th and rented a beautiful home on the water. We are doing things together and individually. There’s enough space for privacy and togetherness. It’s been snowing in Seattle for four hours and snow is coming down in Victoria. Everyone took our two-year-old, grandson, Xavier, out to build a little snowman. He ate the head of the snowman. Excitedly he came inside to tell his Mom he wanted to eat more snowman.

I remember my past Christmas Holidays as I recall memories from my childhood, young motherhood, a mother with teenagers and so on. I cry. Xavier’s Mom thinks it’s because of a movie we finished watching. But it’s so much more than that. My tears are falling from my eyes because I am moving through space and time, and there is no stopping this. I try, the best I can to capture the beauty and love I see. I write my poems, these blogs, other peoples’ stories and short stories. I am chronicling my experience on this earth, or anyone else’s because our experiences are unique.

So the one person I will dearly miss this Holiday is my Grandmother: Elizabeth, Kates McCarl Bruckner. She is a direct descendant of Adam’s family. She lived to be 102 years old. She was independent until she ran out of money and had to move into my Aunt and Uncle’s house at the age of 100.

What did she teach me?

She taught me to be myself and never apologize for that independent streak she displayed. This independence is inside of me too. She’d make angel food cake from scratch, play Old Maid or Parcheesi and always made time for me. She was the executive secretary to her brother who owned a publishing company in Chicago. She never got any retirement because when my Granddad retired, she quit because she didn’t want him alone. She almost died when she was eight. She got very sick when she was young and was sent to her Aunt’s in California for recovery and skipped that grade and had no problems the next year.

She was smart because she loved learning even though she never went to college. She loved National Geographics and filling her mind with useful information. She was a practical person. Kind but never too emotional. The last time I saw her, it was 2008 and right around Thanksgiving. My Aunt was recovering from breast cancer and couldn’t take care of her anymore. Both Katie, my oldest, and I were in Chicago. We drove out to my Aunt’s house to see grandma. Aunt Mary Jane and Uncle Bob left us alone.

Gramma, entirely with it told us she had outlived her usefulness and was now a burden to everyone she loved. She said she didn’t blame Aunt Mary Jane or Uncle Bob, but she didn’t want to live in a nursing home. We held Gramma close, and she let us hug her and didn’t push us away. We told her how much we valued her and the many ways she lived inside of us. We said, “Goodbye” to her.

Aunt Mary Jane and Uncle Bob brought her in the Friday after Thanksgiving. She refused to eat at the nursing home. She grew weak. They put a feeding tube to strengthen her starved body, but the downward spiral effect was in process.

Christmas night she passed on, always a bright light even in her death. Her wisdom, her love and the way she lived life as wholly as possible makes me believe; I can do the same thing.

Who do you miss this Holiday Season?