Christmas Eve--All Day!

It's hard for me to really grasp the fact that today is Christmas Eve.  I hear about it on the radio and we have a little tree put up in the living room by the front window.  But my life these days is centered in our home and my nursing duties here.  We just take it one day at a time.  Changes which I don't understand are taking place in my husband.  He's going through a really hard time, just coping with the pain and weariness.  He's always been a man of great energy and this weariness is a great bewilderment to him.

I had one other Christmas Eve that was very unChristmas like and that was when I was a senior in high school and I'd discovered a lump in my breast.  The surgeon thought it was benign but wanted to take it out on Christmas Day.  My mom convinced him to wait till December 26.  The operation hung over me like the Sword of Damocles.  I was so afraid of the anesthesia.  I was afraid I'd never wake up from it.  I thought I was going to have my last Christmas.  Our youth group went caroling on Christmas Eve.  I felt I couldn't go with them.  I wished they'd come carol at our place, but they didn't.  I felt trapped and alone.  I sat on the couch near the Christmas tree and cried.  My Grandma Emma came to me and put her arms around me and cried with me.  I looked up to see Mom and my brother in the doorway and they looked so concerned about Grandma crying with me, but she was doing exactly the right thing.

I don't remember Christmas Day or what gifts I got.  I do remember being in the hospital the next morning, with the preliminary work completed and just waiting to be taken to surgery.  I had taken a radio and I was listening to "Cousin Carl" on WAVL out of Apollo, PA.  He played guitar and sang  what my mom called "Hill Billy" music.  I loved it.  That morning, one of the songs he sang was, "Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water, clear, cold, water."  My mom, knowing how thirsty I was because I'd been denied food or drink, wanted to turn the radio off.  But I was finally peaceful about my impending operation and I certainly identified with the thirst for clear, cold water.  "Leave it on," I told her.

And then it was over and I did indeed wake up again. The lump was just a benign cyst and all was well.  But it had certainly overshadowed Christmas for me that year.  Now it's a memory that should remind me to enjoy today and not cross that bridge to tomorrow till I get there.  I should have gone caroling with the youth group.

There will be good things about Christmas Eve today.  I'll look for them.  Right now I see that a neighbor who lives up on the corner is running a snowblower, clearing our sidewalk.  How grateful I am!

Posted by: NJ on 12/24/2004 7:48:34 AM , 3 comments