a note from mom's pink sharpie

Now that we are a good month away from the holiday season, I feel I can share how Kelly’s holiday blog post snapped me out of my bah-humbug attitude.

Several years ago, I jumped on the “holiday letter” bandwagon, by sending a one page typed letter expounding on all the wonderful things that we as a family and as individuals had accomplished that year. Shortly afterwards, I received a Christmas note from a family acquaintance who had apparently received our letter. This was from a person who had a similar family to ours: a hardworking father, a stay at home mom, three children, and a dog. The note was fairly short and to the point; but in a nutshell it asked that we not send anymore of these holiday letters about our “perfect” family. It still amazes me today how words, whether spoken or written, can have such a powerful affect. This person not only changed my outlook on “holiday letters,” but on how I expounded upon any of our accomplishments as a family, or as individuals, in the future. I became very reluctant to even talk about our family unless someone asked, and even then I seem to temper the good with some bad.

This past summer, another individual lambasted us about our “perfect” family. Kelly was diagnosed shortly afterwards. I wanted to go back and cram that word “perfect” down that individual’s throat, but then, in the months following Kelly’s diagnosis, I would begin to understand why that “holiday letter” recipient and the other individual had such attitudes about this “perfect” family. It actually didn’t have anything to do with us as a family, but rather what they were experiencing in their own lives at the time. How do I know this, because that “I don’t want to hear about their perfect life” attitude has hit me more than a few times since August. It’s hard to be happy about an engagement, a wedding, a birth, or a promotion, when you are watching some of your loved ones facing a different set of circumstances. Yet, it’s not my place to rain on someone else’s parade, but rather rejoice that we all experience “perfect” moments amidst the non-perfect ones. Our family isn’t, and never will be, “perfect;” but we do experience, accept and celebrate the good, the bad and sometimes even the ugly whether we are together or apart. 

This brings me to this past holiday season and our family Christmas card picture. After my past experience with the “holiday letter,” I was bracing myself for comments on why we were all wearing smiles as though everything was ‘perfect!’ Thus ensued my all time low during the holidays. It was easy to put on a smile for the camera and for those who might see my family, but inside I felt like the grinch had stolen my Christmas. No tree, no presents, no energy or desire to celebrate in the traditional sense. My nerves were on edge and I snapped, luckily it was only in front of my family. We decided to go to the candlelit Christmas Eve service at the church we had been married and Kelly had been baptized. In the pew in front of Kelly sat a young girl and her mom. The little girl’s hair was beautifully braided and I sat back and watched Kelly look at her while fidgeting with the scarf on her own head. I reflected on the last time we were in this church with one year old Kelly in her beautiful white dress and her full head of hair. This service, just as that one so many years ago, consisted of singing a number of hymns and I found myself belting them out through the stream of tears running down my face. After we got home, early on Christmas morning, I read Kelly’s blog and took my beautiful daughter’s advice to stop and look around. What I found was a sense of peace in that I was where I needed to be, doing what I needed to do, and feeling what I needed to feel. Was everything “perfect” in my life, no, but such is life. Do I want to send out a holiday letter or Christmas picture depicting sadness, or depicting happiness, even hopefulness? I’ll continue to choose the latter. Of course, we did receive many comments about our Christmas picture: all extremely POSITIVE.

Now here is an update to a comment I made in an earlier post:

I recently had my yearly mammogram at a different mammography center. I was expecting, as I stated before, that a doctor would come to speak with me after my scan was done. Unfortunately, I was sent on my way without any consultation. So this wasn’t any different than I had experienced at my other mammography center. However, for the first time I received the “dreaded callback.” My gynecologist called me, ironically while we were at Kelly’s chemo treatment, to tell me that I needed to go back for further testing. I wasn’t able to get an appointment until a week later. A very, very long week!  I’ll cut to the chase they did another scan and then had the doctor come to speak with me (so that’s obviously why I made the mistake of thinking the mammography center had the doctor come talk to their patients...it’s because they had also received the “dreaded callback”).

Luckily all was good with the scan, and as I approached Kelly, who was sitting anxiously in the waiting room, I motioned two thumbs up. Kelly sank into the chair with extreme relief (I do believe she was more anxious than I was). Kelly didn’t move, and I said in a fairly loud voice, “Let’s get the hell out of here. We’ve been here enough times in the last several months. I don’t want to come here for awhile!” The staff all had smiles on their faces, and dare I say, most of the people in the waiting room probably wanted to get out of there as well!

Here's to a new year!

Kimberly