There are four weeks to Christmas, and the countdown has me heightened. I lit my mother's white square candle yesterday, the one she has had for decades now. It made me feel good to pull it out and add it to our holiday decor. For a few months, since we emptied her storage unit, I have wanted to do this. It makes more sense to me than having it sit in a toy box in storage - a candle never being burned. It also is one way to lighten the pile of things in my office: papers and photos that are hers that I still need to go through and purge.
I told D and the girls about the candle yesterday as we were eating lunch. We all admired its' beauty and craftsmanship. It’s likely 50 years old. I caught myself wondering what my mother would think about it: would she be horrified we are burning it or would she be happy to see it lit finally; I really have no idea anymore.
December 1
I woke up and the light seemed brighter; it was later than other mornings. I'm still feeling down about myself: feeling like my potential is so much more and I’m not showing up well. I have no idea how to negotiate myself into a better space and I can’t seem to find a way to settle. It’s as if something deep inside me doesn’t believe.
It feels like every Christmas movie I’ve ever seen: the hero needs to find a way to access her goodness, her magic, her potential to make others feel special. She needs to release what has happened in the past and embrace what is currently in her life and ultimately find different ways to approach it.
I feel like I’ve landed on the island of misfit toys and I’m walking around being a judgmental bitch about it. I can’t even believe I wrote that because I hate that word but it’s true, I need to find my center.
December 9
Yesterday, after I dropped off some medication for my mother, I looked through the windows trying to see her eating dinner with others, like a mother peering in on her child at daycare. As I was driving toward the grocery store, I realized I already consider my mother dead. Mostly. When her body finally breaks down and lets go, it will be a relief. The thought horrified me in a way since I was literally just peaking in on her.
I’m having a hard time understanding this path to death. I feel like a heart attack or stroke or Covid, with their relentless speed and finality would be a welcome way to help her transition. Not that quicker is easier, just that this journey grows more precarious. Sometimes I find myself outside myself looking in over the course of years I have traversed.
My mother is more than just a carcass, but at this point I feel much less about her "being" while in her presence and more about her body. When I realized this last night, I wept from the loneliness of that feeling. I’ve started to think of my mother now versus my mother then. The woman now seems so content in many ways but is she feeling scared and alone and just doesn’t have the words to express it? The woman she was would be horrified at her existence right now; she would be angry at us for how she is living.
Putting these heavy thoughts on paper makes me feel both relieved and sad. I’ve been looking for the light these past few weeks and finding it in the strangest places. Maybe it’s because I’m looking for it that it appears to bring me brief brightly colored moments of joy.
My mother's Christmas candle has always been part of my life. As a kid I unpacked this candle from our holiday decorations and placed it on the table behind the couch in our family room many, many years in a row. It sat next to or near the gold advent windmill - the one that would be lit so the candles heat would make it turn. It was a huge delight until inevitably we would touch it and it would fall apart. I got good at fixing it - we all did. The square white candle just down the line went unused. It was beautiful and textured and had fake mistletoe on each side at the bottom. As a texture person, I'm sure I caressed it often when she wasn't looking. It was a curiosity of sorts, mostly because we could never light it. It was there for looks, a museum of her own making.
When my mother finally transitioned into assisted living and it was clear she wasn’t going back home, we began the task of emptying things out of her space. There was Christmas decor everywhere. Loads of fake poinsettias, garland, wreaths, ornaments, and nativity scenes. The list literally went on and on. We all felt it was best to save some items she might ask for; we could pretend to bring them from her house. We were on edge to respond to a woman who would always put us in that frame of mind.
A year after her stroke we finally got around to emptying her house. A year after that, we got around to emptying the storage unit we packed the outliers into. She only asked for the CorningWare and even that went unused once Nancy brought it to her.
The Christmas stuff proved to be the bulk of the storage unit content. It's funny what you choose to value and save. As we paired it down, we either donated more or took what we could back to our house. The Christmas candle was one of the only things I truly wanted. It sat in my office all summer, along with papers and photos I have yet to go through.
But the candle was on borrowed time because for 46 years, I’ve been aching to light it. I like to think for even longer the candle has felt the same way.
When the holidays finally rumbled in, the candle was one of the first things I took out and placed on my table. I could burn this content of my mom’s and release the years and the light, in truth I was also trying to release her.
It’s a strange thing to get rid of someone’s items when they’re still alive. Had she been gone completely I would’ve projected her joy about burning the candle but the first few times I lit it, I wondered whether she would be "damn mad" at me for doing it (her words not mine, and most likely the case). Though I held hope that she might be ideally relieved and glad to see it burning.
I still feel conflicted but we all light it and burn it. This object has come alive and it has become a prominent fixture in my life this season.
Christmas Day
Last year, she came and spent the night on Christmas Eve. It proved to be a heavier lift than I anticipated but I know it made her holiday special. Truth be told, it was nice to have her around. Everyone loves to wake up with childhood enthusiasm on Christmas Day. Even though the girls no longer believed in Santa, we still had fun.
At the time, I assumed it would be her last.
This year, I knew it would be too much to handle both for me and my family and for her. She is mostly in a wheel chair now, barely walking and closes her eyes 10 minutes into any conversation I have with her. I take comfort in the fact that she boldly wished me Merry Christmas a week before the actual day. It would be just another day in her new world.
Still the guilt lingered through the month. Would this be the last one? Only time will tell.