Christmas brings back good memories, bittersweet memories, and even evokes tears as I look at pictures of Christmas past. For several years in a row now, our family has suffered devastating losses of loved ones and Christmas has been stained more than a little bit by those losses. Those empty seats at the table and missing spots in the mandatory annual family pictures of each generation are difficult to accept.
Our oldest generation now has missing links. My younger cousins lament that their kids will not experience the wonders of the family farms or know our grandparents and aunts and uncles the way we did.
It’s not hard to let the melancholy feelings take the lead from time to time. At the same time, life marches forward whether you are standing still or not, and for all the grief, sadness, and loss, we have so many things to celebrate and goodness to embrace.
Eighteen months ago I got married for the first time at age 56 to a wonderful man. I never thought I would get married, but hoped that one day just the right partner for me would come along. And, he did. Here we are as grown-ups figuring out our own Christmas traditions and creating memories with our new family unit. I have in-laws now and Mike’s mom added a stocking with my initial, so I guess I’m ‘official’.
Mike’s family has welcomed me with open arms. There are new babies in his family and young children in mine, and two new babies on the way in the next generation. We now carry the obligation of being family storytellers - keeping the traditions going and sharing family memories. We can talk about the grandmothers and great-grandmothers and give the photos of people our younger generations never met some context. We can make generational relationships mean something and create important connections to our family's past and help it inform the present and future.
As I inevitably shed a few tears while I put my grandmother’s vintage ornaments on the tree and my dear bonus grandmother’s creepy elves out, I also think about how fortunate I am to have had them all. They shaped all of us and it’s natural to mourn those losses and feel sad and happy at the same time when we think about them and all the experiences we had.
This Christmas and New Year’s I look forward to another year with this new husband of mine. I cherish all of the past and feel so fortunate to have had what we all had. And now, I can also plan ahead and create new memories with the best man I know.