Another year is just about over, the year that many people wish had never happened. 2020.
I could list all of the calamities of this ill-fated year, but that would only make things worse. I'll just focus on this month of December, which has always been a complex month for me. This year, it's even more fraught with complications.
Today is December 7th, a day that will live in infamy for many reasons. It's Pearl Harbor Day, of course. I've stood over the U.S.S. Arizona, still sunk in Pearl Harbor, still holding the entombed bodies of those who fought and lost, buried forever in their vessel. I've seen the oil still leaking from that boat, swirling languidly in the waters off Hawaii. That alone is enough of an emotionally-packed reason to honor this day.
December 7th is a strange date for me personally for a great many reasons. I was married to my first husband on this day in 1975. He and I moved, along with our two daughters, permanently to New York from southern Ohio, on December 7th in 1978, quite the culture shock. We moved to Larchmont, NY to be near his mentor and to begin his career as a film and television makeup artist. Fast forward 36 years...and December 7th is the date that my mother left this Earth. I also lost my father in December, five calendar days (but many years) before my mother's death. In the past few years I've lost five friends during this month. Not to be completely gloomy, I was also born this month - a Solstice baby- and of course, there are several religious holidays during the month of December. You can see why it's so complicated for me!
This year my first Christmas decoration was the purchase of an all-white, small, retro Christmas tree decked out in blue lights. I saw it in a flea market shop, and couldn't leave the store without it. I put it in the bay window of my second floor which faces the street. It's the first thing people see when they turn onto our tiny lane...flanked with four window candles and cradled in the white lights tucked up into the Dutch Colonial eaves. It's my nod to the Blue Christmas movement.
I want to focus on what "Blue Christmas" means. I hadn't heard the term, other than Elvis's rendition of the song, until a few years ago. It seems that there is a quieter, more reflective observation of Christmas for those who have lost loved ones at this time. I've seen the programs for these services but have never had the opportunity to attend one. It sounds like a really beautiful way to be with other people in a less loud, boisterous, colorful celebration of the season.
But there is another meaning to a Blue Christmas, for me, which is really quite mystical: Six years ago, my mother passed away on this date while my husband and I were on a "Christmas on the Danube" river tour. She had been living nearby first in assisted living and then a nursing home, where members of our family visited her several times a week. She was in great shape for a tiny little old lady. She cheered us on when we told her we were going to go on this beautiful trip with a local group. She would be fine, she assured us. And my daughter Jess who lives nearby would continue her frequent visits. I filled out all the requisite paperwork so that if the inevitable happened while we were away, Jess would have full legal authority to make the final arrangements for Grandma's cremation. But none of that would be needed, surely. My mother, a witty and intelligent Irish woman to the end, was in fine shape when we left.
We arrived in Vienna after two long flights, and boarded the small riverboat that would be our home for the next six days. The only shore activity that first day was a tour of Vienna, that magical city of music. We drove all around the city, admiring the historic areas and ending our coach tour with a stop at a Christkindlemarket. It was held in the platz in front of the Schonbrunn Palace, a stunning building with a huge Christmas tree on display in front. There were choirs of children singing carols. There were traditional pine bough-laden booths selling Christmas punch, cuckoo clocks, fensterlichten (wooden cut-out lights to put in your window), pastries, and of course, tchotchkes of all sorts. It was so festive, so beautiful...
We returned to the boat after dinner, still docked in a side-waterway off the Danube for the evening. Our boat would leave port while we slept that night. Only, I couldn't sleep. Our stateroom had a large picture window that I stood by, watching the lights on the locks on the river as we passed slowly through them in the darkness, making our way to the next destination. I tried sleeping, but was unsuccessful. I spent quite some time standing by that window. Maybe it was the hour, maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard the strains of the Strauss waltz, "The Blue Danube," my father's favorite. I could see my parents in my mind's eye - waltzing to that beautiful music, holding each other close.
Then came the knock on the door. I knew immediately what it was. I was escorted to the Captain's quarters where a phone call from my son-in-law awaited me, to tell me my mother had passed away. It took some effort for that call to go through, but he was able to reach me, as my daughter couldn't make that call. There was no way the boat could let me off until morning. The next day my husband and I made landfall and took a cab back to the Vienna airport to begin the long journey home.
I don't know if my mother left this Earth to dance with my father that night, but I like to believe that that was what I was tuning in to as our boat quietly made its way down the river. I had a few photos that I had taken at the Christkindlemarket. I painted the scene of the platz from one of the photos, and pull it out of storage every Christmas now to remember that one beautiful night in Vienna. Today as I write this, I made another synchronous connection - my mother grew up in Ohio near an historic Moravian village, called "Schoenbrunn." And I had been near another historic site by the same name on the night that she died.
And so, as we all struggle to make sense of 2020, I struggle simply to make sense of the month of December. Tonight I'll light a fire and place some dried rose petals in it to send fragrance up to Heaven. Rest in peace, all ye who pass away at this mystical time of year. It'll be a blue Christmas without you. But not one devoid of joy.
