Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.
Christmas never came this year. It passed our family right on by. The tree is still decorated. I turn the lights on every evening hoping to feel a little cheer. The cheer...it never comes. Presents are still wrapped, hidden in the closets. They never made it to the tree. Noone seems to want to open anything. Christmas came and went, just another day. I did take a present to my parents house. It still sits unopened for my mother under a small table top tree. When I look at the presents that I still have wrapped in shopping bags in my closet, I wonder if they will ever be opened. Even the ones that I know I got for myself are joyless, lifeless objects. I can't bear to open them either.
The only present that was truly delivered was the one my daughter gave to my father, her grandfather. It will never be opened. She had gone Christmas shopping with her friends about 3 weeks before Christmas and she got my father hankerchiefs. He always uses cloth hanky's. She took her lovely light blue wrapped package and placed it under the tree. The paper had silver glitter swirls on it and it was wrapped with a white bow, addressed: To Papa, From Danyelle. It sat under the tree until December 27th. On that day, I saw Danyelle sitting with the package on her lap in a recliner near the tree. She was looking at it sadly. "What will I do with my gift for Papa, mommy?" I just looked at her. I almost did not know what to say. She looked so sad, with tears in her eyes. My heart hurt just to think about it. " We will let you place it in the coffin with him, so he will have it always." It was the only thing I could think of to tell her. It would be her last gift to her grandfather.
Christmas never came this year because my father died of a sudden heart attack on Friday, December 22, just a few days before Christmas. Danyelle did gift her gift to her grandfather. She placed it in the coffin with him at the last viewing of the body we had on Thursday, December 28th. The funeral was the next day, Friday, December 29th. My father was 75 years old.
As for our Christmas? For now, we have decided that we will have Christmas sometime in January. Until then the tree will stay up and will be turned on every night. The gifts will stay hidden in the closet, still wrapped in their gay and pretty paper until then.
Merry Christmas Dad! I will always love you.
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