Times are Strange
Agree with this title?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment!
It is late on Christmas Day, 2021. Five pm. Pale and thin, the winter light is fading fast. It will be dark before I finish typing this post. It is not cold even though a glance outside confirms it looks as if it could be. The color gray. Yet, this is Georgia and today has been pleasantly warm; almost muggy.
If all goes as planned I will not be home on January 1, 2022 to write or post this entry. I will be somewhere warm and sunny without internet access! I’m typing it today and will schedule it to publish on New Year’s day. Unless plans change. And that is nearly a given in these strange days. The dreaded virus that has taken our world on a roller coaster ride of feelings both physical and emotional over the last two years is not finished with its macabre mission.
Christmas is memorable for many reasons. Most have to do with family and friends. There was the Eve in 1962 when I was not yet ten. We lived next door to my Granny. She was in her eighties, in poor health, and rarely left her home. Our family was returning from an aunt’s house. It was cold and we were bundled up, but we heard her faint cry through the still air. “Help! Jimmy? Help me!” She had suffered that calamity, a fall resulting in a broken hip that sends so many old and feeble into their final decline. She died the following August.
There was the time another aunt suffered fatal injuries in a vehicle accident and died just days before Christmas, casting a somber mood over our family gathering. There was the year my oldest brother was in Vietnam, his first time away from family at Christmas. The time my daddy was not well but we didn’t yet know the diagnosis, lung cancer, would mean it was his last Christmas with us. Most of the time we don’t have the foresight to know it could be our last gathering with certain family members. We did not know that about my mother, my brother, and most hurtful, my son. Sometimes it is a blessing to not know what the future holds, for we could not bear the present if we did.
Perhaps that is why this Christmas has seemed especially poignant this year. For the first time in over sixty years there has been no family gathering for my side of the family on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. My husband and I have been home, just us and the dog. We managed to see my brothers, sister, and in-laws earlier in the week, and will see our children and grandchildren in a couple of days, Lord willing. Even last year, when Covid protocols were stricter, we saw our children and grandchildren. But this has been strange. Not especially bad or sad, just different.
I shouldn’t let it get me down. I’ve been granted many joyful Christmas times. I don’t know I am blessed to have my husband. I know some who don’t. I am blessed to with a comfortable existence and at least a semblance of health. I know the real reason for the season is Jesus, and I am secure in the knowledge that I will see my loved ones again someday. I may not understand exactly how, but I don’t doubt God’s promise that it will happen. If he can create infinity, he can do anything.
As for 2022, thank God we DON’T know what is in store. Strange? After the last couple of years we shouldn’t be surprised at anything. May God bless you in the New Year. Let’s hope for the best, take each day as it comes, and each of us work to make our own little corner of the world a better place. Smile. Be kind. Laugh. Love.
