Birthdays: There are way too many people
around me with December birthdays and that adds a lot of stress to the holidays.
My wife Diane’s is on the 20th, my twin siblings are on the 15th,
the same birthday as my father in-law who died 15 years or so ago. My mother
in-laws birthday is the week before my wife’s and my nephew’s is the 28th. Oh,
and last but not least; my sister, the one that was murdered the day before her
15th birthday. Her birthday is the same day as my wife’s on the 20th which makes my wife feel kind of weird, so she always wants to keep it low key,
especially around my mother.
Christmas: Not having been raised with any
kind of religious teachings, Christmas was all about Santa Claus and presents not
Jesus or Hanukkah for that matter. Both
my parents were born in Argentina and raised Jewish so I think for our family
Christmas was more about trying to be American. We didn't have any history or
traditions around Christmas so for us kids it was all about the getting and not
much to do with the giving.
I for one
have never been very good at receiving gifts which in turn makes me
uncomfortable at giving gifts. I've always been of the mind that if I want or
need something I will just get it myself. On the flip side I also don’t want to
guess what someone else may want or need.
In my 50 plus years of Christmases
and birthdays I can only think of a couple of times where I've been truly happy
with a gift I've received. They were both from my wife and seeing as how we've been together for over 30 years that’s about a 3% success rate. Finally after
all those years of trying to find me that perfect gift I convinced her to just
get me what I want, nothing. So now I get nothing and you know what? I’m still
not satisfied, just a little sad.
New Years Eve: Like we need another collective excuse
for a party. I guess I’m a little jaded living next door to the most happening party
bar in town. It’s just how I want to start the New Year with drunken revelers being
loud, exploding fire crackers, and puking on my front yard.
Moira: That was my sisters name, like I
said at the beginning she was killed on the day before her 15th
birthday. That would be December 19, 1973. She went off to school that day and
never came home. My parents reported her missing but the police listed her as a
possible run away. This was back in the day before we all knew about serial
killers, missing kids on milk cartons, or that friends could keep a secret
about something so terrible.
At the time
Moira went missing our house and family were not a happy place. My parents were
always fighting and inching towards a divorce, with us kids feeling the stress.
My older brother had just gone off to college and I was a rebellious teenager
who couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. When I heard that my sister
might have run away I thought “cool” she escaped and I wished that I had the
guts to just leave, but I just escaped with the help of drugs and alcohol. For
the month before some kids found her body in a park, life just went on for me
in my usual smoky cloud of obliviousness. That included her birthday,
Christmas, and New Years. Her murder has
never been solved and for most of my life I didn't think much about her life or
death. I don’t know if it’s my age, or that I spend a lot of time reflecting on
the past, or that my emotions aren't buried in the smoky clouds anymore. But
for whatever reason I think of my sister much more these days, especially
during December.
Like I said,
December is not my favorite time of year and I’m glad it’s over but it’s not
all doom and gloom or an insurmountable downer. There is that short lived
collective spirit of giving that we see around us, there is the annual return
of Egg Nog, and for Diane’s birthday there is our favorite meal in the world,
Smelt & Frites at Bistro Jeanty in Napa to remind us of Michigan and simpler times.
To view the column in it's original form go to page 12 of the following link. Winters Express 1/10/13
No comments:
Post a Comment