4 posts tagged “holidays”
Originally published at file under "Miscellanea". You can comment here or there.
What a weighty title, no? But as I started to write in my new gratitude journal, I realized the end product would, indeed, be a compilation of the best moments of my life on a daily basis. I was inspired to start this journal by Michelle Ward’s tweet linking me to this post by Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar.
I’m writing the entries in a small book made for me by a friend who was learning bookbinding, and it feels like the appropriate precious vessel for all these memories. Each evening or the following morning, I review my day and write/sketch something that records the best part of that day: a conversation, something shared, an epiphany.
I started the journal yesterday, thinking that the winter solstice—when our days start to creep back toward the light—was an appropriate time to start paying attention to the light in my life.
December 21
Putting up the tree this year was victory enough, but I was surprised by the end of the night to also feel some ownership of the tree—not just that I had put up my mother’s Christmas tree. Sometimes, I think I’m going to be okay.
NB. I should probably explain the drawing, eh? It’s a small (like the size of my pinky finger) white plastic skeleton hanging on our Christmas tree. When I was a kid, he was revealed from behind a store-bought advent calendar—I have no other memories of that advent calendar, but surreal li’l Mr Skeleton has been part of my family’s Christmas tradition ever since. After each holiday, my mum took great care to make sure he was found on the tree and wrapped up in his own bag so he wouldn’t get lost amongst all the other ornaments. Coming home for the holidays whilst in college, I love searching the tree for his creepy bones. Now he hangs on my tree and is still my favorite ornament.
My mother finished up her second round of chemo the day before Thanksgiving, so we were hoping to make it through the holidays and the new year without further treatment. However, today her doctor finally was able to pinpoint the source of the side pain that's been crippling her for the past two months: the cancer in her adrenal glands has spread and is surrounding one side of her spine. The tumors are displacing other things that need to be in that space, possibly pinching a nerve or somehow or another causing the pain.
During her first round of chemo, there was significant shrinkage of the main tumors, but the adrenal ones either increased slightly or maintained their size at diagnosis. After three months without treatment, her main tumors were again showing growth, so she started a new chemotherapy treatment. This means she's had a dozen treatments in eleven months since her diagnosis...and now we're going into a cycle of radiation treatments to hopefully shrink the tumors around her spine and are likely to follow that up with more chemotherapy.
This morning, prior to the doctor's appointment, we were talking about Christmas shopping and about finishing up our Christmas projects and what would occupy our shared craft desk in the new year. We were living with cancer, but hopeful and happy. Now, I just feel beaten up. I was trying to be satisfied that the disease was stable despite the fact that she's gone through six very difficult rounds of chemotherapy since August, but now we know it's worse than that: it's been progressing merrily right along.
The long-term diagnosis for people with her stage and type of cancer isn't good. According to the American Cancer Society, fewer than half of those diagnosed live more than a year. As of today, we are one year and six days past her date of diagnosis; we've beaten those initial odds. But, of course, it's not rainbows and sunshine past the one-year mark: only fifteen percent live five more years. I used to want to use up every moment of those five years, but now I wonder if and when I'll feel that I'm just wringing her dry. In four more years, my brother will be fifteen; will he only remember his mother as someone tired and sick? How much longer before we have to talk to him about the reality of her disease and prognosis?
I wish cancer could take a holiday, as silly and selfish as it sounds. I'm starting to dread this time of year, my wild emotions about my mother's initial diagnosis and now her continuing sickness all wrapped up in the crazy fa-la-la-la we're supposed to be feeling. I want to have that, I want to be shopping for friends and loved ones and so very festive, but I haven't had it and now I know I won't be able to work myself up to it. Worse still, I feel terrible for everyone else in my life having to deal with this now--how do you graciously dodge everyone else's holiday cheer without bringing them down with the dreaded C word?
Show us something you're working on.
Submitted by Sephy.
Something inspired my mum to make holiday cards this year, so we've been enjoying (I hope) sitting across from each other in our new shared craft area and making cards from a mishmash of crafty things I already had stashed and things she bought specific to the holiday season. At first, I worried about how our creations would be received (my mother doesn't really do any papercrafts and my collages are much more chaotic than your basic christmas card), but now I'm just reveling the time together, the hands-on fun, the joy of exploring and making together.
This card marks the halfway point through our cardmaking, so while it is a finished product, the cardmaking is "in progress."
For the first couple of days, the tree has been up sans ornaments, since this is Ripley's first exposure to a Christmas tree and Bishop has been known to climb our smaller one Christmases past. Thus far, they seem content to just scramble around it and nibble at the lower branches, but I predict at least one kitten up in the tree before this puppy comes down.
Overall, putting up the tree and miscellaneous decorations was a bit depressing. My mum wasn't feeling well and my husband said he was "Christmas-ed out" from decorating at work, so I kinda fiddled around with things all day and did everything solo. Well, that's not 100% accurate. From the bottom two photos, you can see I had some help from Ripley, our kitten. After some initial exploration of the tree branches when they were laid out on the floor, she quickly laid claim to the tree's box and took a nap. Can't say I didn't envy her.
Anyway, today I finished putting up all the non-glass/breakable ornaments and will eventually supplement the post with a photo of the completed tree. I realized whilst hanging the ornaments that there could be a good blog post about individual ornaments, their history, their meaning. My mother's tree has an interesting mix of ornaments--storebought and handmade, celebrating interesting milestones (my first Christmas with my husband, our various new homes, etc.). Plus, not every tree has an ornament with a hedgehog hugging a cactus and don't you just want to hear more about that? ;)
