Holidays w/o Jeff

Holidays w/o Jeff

This is the second year Jeff will be gone for the holidays.  I have been trying to keep busy, but truth be told, Jeff is always on my mind.  Last week as I was preparing my appetizers for Thanksgiving, my mind kept reflecting back on conversations of previous Thanksgivings.   My phone always started ringing early in the morning.  Jeff was always on the other end…we basically did our cooking together…over the phone.  At day’s end he would always boast his turkey came out better than mine.  I do not doubt it…Jeff was a good cook.  He had no problems cooking for his family, in fact, his children preferred he cooked.  This Thanksgiving, there were no calls from Jeff.  No one needed help cooking.   Not that Jeff ever needed help coking…I think he and I just had a thing going…cooking, alone in each of our kitchens.  But we weren’t alone…we were on the phone together, while we cooked. 

 

Tears were shed, not like last year, but still there were tears.  Things this year were just quiet.  Gone are the days where I chased everyone out of the kitchen while I cooked.  Gone are the days where kids are laughing, or crying in the background.  Gone are the days where the board-games are dragged out of the closet, dusted off, and scattered throughout the living room.  Gone are the days where everyone gathers around my table…Steve, the kids, grandkids, and close friends.  Gone are the days where the kitchen is a disaster after dinner.  Gone are the days where pies of various kinds filled the counter-tops, waiting to be devoured. 

As life goes on without Jeff…things just do not seem to matter as much.  It did not bother me that Tina took her family up north for the holiday.  It should have bothered me…but it really didn’t.  There was a time when I would have fought her leaving town, this year things just are as they are.  And now one holiday is done and gone…and Christmas is right around the corner.  Not one gift have I bought this year.  This year things are going to be different…Christmas giving will be different…

I have been cleaning out all drawers, cubbyholes, bedrooms, closets, the shed, and the garage.  I have been going through every room in my house…it is time for me to get rid of everything not is use.  What is the point for keeping these things that were once very dear to me?  My motto this season…get rid of it.  If you do not use it…lose it!  I have not yet gone through pictures…my plan is to go through pictures and do the same.  I came across a project I have been working on for many, many years, perhaps as long as 10 or 15 years. 

I had been digging up pictures of both Steve’s family and my family, old pictures of our families for my children to have.  I have talked to people from both our families whom I have never met.  Distant relatives in other states have sent me copies of old family pictures…along with a little history of each person in the picture.  Every time I talked to a new relative I would ask for the name and number of another relative they thought may be able to assist me.  I met people over the phone from all parts of these Unites States.  I wanted this, this genealogy of photos, to be a gift for my kids for Christmas 2012…the Christmas before Jeff died.  I was working on several books at the same time for the kids, and long story short…due to circumstances out of my control, I could not get them done in time for that Christmas.  And now, as I held some of those photos in my hands I said aloud, “What the hell is the point of finishing it now?”  This is how I feel.  As I held this photo album I made for Jeff…these pictures of relatives, both mine and Steve’s whom have long ago perished…what now?  I had an urge to vomit just thinking about the years I spent working on acquiring these pictures.  Not to mention the countless hours, all the hours I spent putting these together…and now…all I want to do is burn them! 

Jeff knew I was working on these ancestral photos…he was excited to see the end result.  He kept urging me to send him what I had…again it is that whole ‘should have’  ‘could have’ guilt I now live with.  How I hate this life I now live.  I get angry when I think of the reason that held me back from finishing that book.  At the very least I should have finished Jeff’s book and not worried about the others.  Jeff is the one who would have truly appreciated the photo album most.  After all, it was his entire lineage in the photos.  These photos that took me many years to collect, copy, cut , and glue…and were to be a Christmas gift for Jeff…are now useless.  I know I can give them to his children, but for now they are far too young to appreciate these photos.  Should I save them for the future…well quite frankly, who the hell knows what the future holds for me…for my life?  I may not be here 20 years from now…and believe me, if I am gone…no one will take care of these books.

A few day ago I decorated my Christmas tree.  I bought a special ornament for both Steve and Jeff.  I think this is as much as I will decorate this year.  I remember how the kids loved my decorated house.  Growing up I did not have much…monetarily anyway.  My single mother had nine children, so birthdays and Christmas’s were somewhat sparse.  In her own way she did what she could.  Now, as an adult, I have no recollection of waking up on Christmas mornings…not in my childhood, nor in my youth…none what-so-ever!  Subsequently, in raising my own children I wanted them to feel Christmas in all its glory.  So I did the lights, decoration, baking, candy, and gifts galore.  I wanted them to be touched by the whole shebang.  I took them Christmas caroling each year.  And on Christmas Eve we would hire a horse driven carriage to take us on a sleigh ride.  I always wanted the holidays to be special for them.  Our home was inundated with family and friends each year. 

When I look back at these memories…they don’t make me happy…they make me sad.  They make me sad that memories is all I have left.  I compare those memories to this life I now live and hate.  I hate this life I live, this life without love, and this life where I write about my feelings, my emotions…I feel I write to strangers, because I have no one who will sit and listen.  I hate this life.  I try to go forth day to day, I try to make others feel the things I want to feel.  This Christmas…without Jeff…I walk around and I try hard to keep breathing.  Sometimes I wonder if I will ever stop thinking about Jeff…sometimes I find myself fantasizing I will someday be happy again, but reality is, I am not happy.  My life is what it is…it is not good…it is not bad…it just is.