Last year after Christmas, I decided I would never spend another one with my family. I would make my apologies to my brothers and dad, and find something else to do. I reneged on that this year when the darling nephew came along and I couldn't resist.
I had a plan, though. I'm single and live alone so I can do pretty much what I please with my time. I planned to volunteer at the shelter for abused children on Christmas day. This is a center where children are placed until they can go into foster homes. Sometimes the foster families "give them back" to the system and they spend more time in the shelter, awaiting placement with another family. Once I understood that I was an abused child (though there was never a physical bruise, the bruises were all psychological) I wanted to do something to help these children. In my attempt to re-parent myself, to tell myself the things I had longed to hear as a child, I wanted the chance to share unconditional acceptance with children. My therapist approved of the plan. I started visiting the shelter. I play piano, so I take a keyboard and we sing songs. It's not much; I can't afford to bring toys and gifts. But I know that if they have suffered physical abuse it results in psychological devastation, and I do
know what that feels like. It helps me, probably more than it helps the kids.
There are different children every time I go to the shelter - they don't know my name. I am not so pollyanna that I believe they will get joy or peace because I visited them with a keyboard in tow. My hope is that for a few moments the emptiness doesn't take center stage in their lives. Since I have this relationship established with the shelter I know I can go there for Christmas, and I may wind up there anyway. My nephew's other set of grandparents live out of state, so I'm sure there will be years when he will be away at Christmas. On those occassions I will be at the shelter. My dad will just have to understand, my Nmother will say she doesn't care, Christmas is just another day anyway.
I absolutely will not spend another Christmas Day in tears. My most hurtful memories revolve around Christmas. Children cannot help but get their hopes & expectations high. With my Nmother, it felt as though she deliberately did everything she could to destroy those hopes and expectations, then belittled me for my selfishness or greed or neediness, finally declaring many, many years ago that Santa Claus was all a lie that should never have been told to children, and decorations and gifts and lights and cards had nothing to do with the "real meaning of Christmas" and therefore, were forever banished from her home. She did not attend the Christmas services at church, even though I always played the piano and often had a vocal solo. I thought surely she would come since it was a chruch activity but as I so vividly recall her saying, that was all meaningless pageantry and I was wasting my time. What a miserable human being! Her loss.
jl
