Bea V. Larsen . . . .Commentaries |
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Bea V. Larsen is a Senior Mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in |
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A Melancholy Day This entry was posted on 12/1/2007 10:34 AM and is filed under Personally Speaking. When my kids were young, Halloween was my favorite holiday. With little spent in time or money, the night ended with costumes askew and each child’s candy hoard spread out and sorted on the living room floor. Apples disdained, chocolate eaten with abandon. It seems right that Thanksgiving should be next in line for favored status, a time to remember all that is most treasured, friendships and family, and savor favorite recipes. Seems right, but is not quite true. With children living far away, I join old friends. We are all smiling as the sumptuous meal is presented, but I must purposefully pull myself back from a focus on who is no longer at the table. Then I talk about him, casually, even tell funny stories about his carving exploits, and I can breathe again. But I want to go home, be alone with my thoughts, allow my practiced smile to dim. A son phones and senses my mood, which he says he shares. We reminisce about years long past, the annual early Thanksgiving morning drive to the Chicago suburbs. Kids snug under blankets dozing in the back seat, wake as dawn lights the sky. We reach a half way mark and pull into a familiar roadside restaurant for pancakes and hot coffee. Cousins fairly tumble over each other in joyful reunion, as the Larsen clan gathers in the small prairie town where some still live. Too many to seat together except around the ping pong table in Aunt Joan’s basement, hot dishes carefully carried down a dimly lit steep stairway. Babies passed from arms to arms, giving new parents respite. How many times did this scene replay? Until one day children returned with their own small people carried aloft on shoulders grown broad and strong. The familiar aromas are in my kitchen, soon crowded with helping hands. As the day wanes, Len and I leave for an evening walk, hand in hand in the cold winter air. With last week’s holiday now past, everywhere I hear: How was your Thanksgiving? The response: Great! My response: Fine. In this answer there is both truth and undisclosed sadness, and I know not just my own. For every family there is a story to be told, some sadness, some regret. Oddly, I almost savor my melancholy mood, for it intensifies the moments remembered. Would the losses be so mourned, if less precious? But, if I was king of the world, we would now fast forward to the first of next year, and bypass all the holiday merriment of December. How humbug is that? CommentsDisplay comments as (Linear | Threaded)
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