Someone's Kind of Christmas

One day when I was living in the city, it was early December and I was pushing a small child in a stroller who was happily shout-singing “The Goodbye Song.” Maybe you've heard of it? Goodbye, [name of person], goodbye ____, goodbye ____, we're glad to you came to play!

Except this one went,

"Goodbye, car, goodbye, tree, goodbye sidewalk, we're glad you came to play!"

And then another verse:

"Goodbye, scary rat, goodbye scary rat, goodbye scary rat, we're glad you came to play!"

He could have been singing to a real rat (likely), but he was actually singing to one of those giant inflatable rats which I've since learned have a name: Scabby the Rat. They are union rats and symbols of labor protests and are used to draw attention to labor disputes. Fun fact that isn't actually all that fun: A "rat" in union slang is a contractor who works against their employees and a "scab" is an employee who continues to work during a strike.

The inflatable rats are enormous and intentionally repulsive and on this day, this adorable child was sweetly singing goodbye to it.

I laughed and so did a man walking by, who said over his shoulder, "I can't wait for my grandbabies to get talking like that!"

He was carrying a mop and a bucket and had an air of exuberance about him. He went on to tell me he had 1-year-old twin granddaughters who he could NOT tell apart, who were adorrrable (showed us a pic on his phone) and also that he was fifty-three years old, approaching a 3rd Christmas without his mother, that he was an only child and he had just—as in days/weeks ago, found out he was adopted.

So, "a lot to deal with," he said.

And with a cheerful goodbye and a pivot, we shook hands and he went on his way in one direction and I on mine in another.

And I remember thinking, "That's the kind of Christmas one person in the world is having right now."

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Two years ago on December 8, my cousin passed away from breast cancer. She was in her early 50's and had a husband and four daughters aged 10'ish-16'ish. She discovered her cancer weeks after her own mother passed away two days before Christmas.

My cousin's husband wrote a thing on Facebook talking about how December 8 would forever be stamped in his brain and body. December 8, December 8, December 8. Maybe even the 8th of every month. The number 8 now felt cursed.

But he shared of a friend of his whose wife also died on the 8th of a month, and he said initially, every 8th felt ruined. But after a while, it started to bring him courage. He turned it into a marker of his survival. I've made it X months, why not X-amount more? He talked about all the firsts that are so hard but that it didn't have to stay that way. He said something I connected to: "But with each one you pass, it is passed."

Sometimes I don't know what to do with all the suffering in the world. Suffering I read about, hear about secondhand, witness firsthand. Suffering I don't see or hear about but know must be rampant, all around me. The unspoken suffering. Including that of my own. We all experience it, in many varieties and flavors.

Whenever I hear someone say they are going through or have gone through some traumatic or painful experience, I work really hard at responding in some way to acknowledge what they've said to me. Like many, I often don't know what to do or say in times like this. I don't have the right words. I can't say anything of comfort, though I very much wish I could. And I am thinking the reason why is because there aren't any right words. There isn't anything of comfort at the moment. Maybe comfort is not to be had right now. Maybe right now is the time to simply abide with them in their experience.

I remember feeling a little paralyzed and strangely uplifted by the interaction with that man on the street. Maybe because I value raw honesty and realness. Maybe because I saw him be joyful in his complicated life and that was powerful to me. It felt like a transference, taking me out of my life and putting me into another’s, and I was affected.

Often what I do in these moments witnessing someone else’s life is pause to stand juxtaposed with another human. I think about what my life looks like and what theirs looks like. I might visualize and compare my day with theirs. I woke up today and I ate breakfast. Did they have breakfast? Did they cry while they ate their breakfast? My walk looks like this. What does their walk look like? It’s Christmastime now. What is my kind of Christmas compared to theirs?

When it's my turn to be consumed by tragedy or heartache, I am all but incapacitated to imagine someone else's life. But when I'm not, I am able to pause in my day and life and imagine our two lives being lived, simultaneous and paralleled. Then our paths intersect for just a moment, and before we diverge, contact is made, something is shared, and in that contact, maybe in some strange way for just a second, all of us are twins, pairs born of one birth.

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December 8 is an anniversary for me as well. It marks the anniversary of when I took a nervous trip to Target, among other things. It marks the day that I frantically paced the house, among other things. It marks the anniversary of when I wrapped an early Christmas present in a small long box. It marks the day that I found out that somehow I was–to use the seasonal expression–with child.

On the first anniversary of that original December 8, I wrote this:

I went to Target today. I bought toilet paper, and diapers and some medicine and toothpicks. And when I realize what I'm doing, it all seems so surreal. Exactly one year ago something befell me that was supposed to be impossible. And my world, my perception of the world and how it is and can even be, crashed to the floor in a heap of shards of nonsense. I feel those feelings again. I feel the implications of that discovery. I look at and squeeze the result, what actually came to pass believe it or not (I still don't), [and I still don't] and I don't understand. I don't understand. How did this happen? I don't understand. And I experience a deep humility that a walk to Target on December 8 can strangely bring.

One thing I love about seasons is their ability to unearth feelings that have settled deep inside, so that you actually begin to feel them again. This is something recalling a mere memory can't quite do. It's a powerful way to re-experience life. Sights, smells, sounds, the natural rhythms in the body. Many years have passed but I still remember the feeling. Vague images start appearing in my head. I want to keep hold of it and I feel the sudden need to make a hallowed Target run.

That’s lovely when it’s something good. On the flip side, painful associations can rise to the surface and are re-felt, re-experienced. Days marred forever, bringing with them a torrent of confused emotions. The encroaching effects of trauma become more noticeable, physically felt. The body, the container for it all, remembers anniversaries acutely. Maybe better than we do.

So when I think of all the million different kinds of December 8ths there must be in the world, I have a desire to recognize, to observe them all. The joyous and the wretched. The cursed and the blessed. I think of miraculous entrances and devastating exits. Death after life. Life after death. And the time in the interim. Like a man with a mop once said, it's all a lot to deal with.

So here's to you on your December 8th. One that may mean something, or nothing. Or start out one way, then change shape. Days when feelings might dissipate or refresh, or be filled with carry-over from days before. Or begin with tragedy and turn to courage, or the other way around. Maybe, in spite of it all, it can simply be a day, if not now, then someday, that we are able to mark for good. Maybe even sing sweetly in the face of rats. My December 8th was granted unto me, but I do wonder: Out of whatever kind of Christmas we are having, is it possible to make a miracle?

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