1.2.09

the christmas tree - part 1.

i don't know that this post is appropriate.

i have friends who blog about their lives and i love reading those but that was not what this blog was set apart to do. it was created to be a vehicle to communicate to others who wanted to know about john's progress with his illness.

there have been times that i wanted to say something but for the most part filtered it b/c john's illness is not about me and i never wanted it to turn into that. that having been said, as we enter into 2009, just six days away from the anniversary of john getting ill, i find that i have something i want to share with you all. (haha, 'you all'. as though there is an 'all'. ok, so, something i want to share with the three or four of you) =)
i've decided to go ahead and do so b/c, quite honestly, i'm pretty certain that this would not have happened to me had i not just spent the last year in the school of life, post john's diagnosis. so, in reality, it's still related. it's related to what i typed over there on the right side, in the brown boldface; "life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. it is about learning to dance in the rain".

that is my mantra for 2009. i invite you to join me in that.
so, here is my story. it is not earth shattering, but it is significant...

each year we put up the christmas tree. it's usually artificial and each year i have this picture in my head of what it 'should' look like. (ya know, like that picture in my head of how life 'should' look. insert wild waves of laughter here. hahahahaha).

ok, so, each year we string the damn lights to perfection. it takes forever. the dust from crawling up under the tree to get them in just the right spot sets off my allergy to all things dusty and soon i look like someone's punched me in both eyes.

then, i set to the task of straightening out the branches, 'right, left, up, right, left, up, right, left, up'; all the way around the tree, then move up 12 inches and repeat, and repeat and repeat, to the top.

then the ornaments come out. so, there's two kinds of ornaments, ... there's the georgeous ones that look like something out of Southern Living magazine, muted gold tones and ancient reds with golden hues adorned with gold leaf, and there's those the kids made or were given to us as kid gifts (dora, trains, dinasours, etc).

each year when all is said and done (about 2 coughing, frustrated hours later), i would stand back and enjoy my tree, ... though i silently lamented that with all the kid stuff it just wasn't what i had set out to create.

so last year we had the 'ornament incident' (dunt dunt dunnnnn) ...music.
everything somehow broke. i'm not sure what happened. it was sort of like life in 2008, ironically.

things sort of disappeared, or tarnished, or broke completely. interestingly enough, this was true only for the store bought pretty ones. by the time i was done unpacking them, there were hardly any left. in the rush to get the task at hand done, i got them up on the tree and went on with the business of daily life. when christmas was over and i was taking things down i didn't like the mismatch i had left so i said, 'forget it', and i threw everything store bought and pretty away (there wasn't much left) fully intending to go out this year and purchase all new.
also, at some point, we decided to throw away the tree too, as it was just so old that it had rusted out.

and then january 8, 2008 happened. and john said, 'what are these spots on my ankles?' and the world as i knew it imploded. he lost his health, his independence, and his income, almost his life. by 08's christmas, there was no money to be had for new ornaments or a tree and quite honestly, i had forgotten about it completely anyway. until it was time to decorate...

skipping ahead: after a few weeks of, 'should we have a tree?', 'maybe we should skip a tree', and a friend giving us a tree that was about 2 feet too tall for my living room so we donated it to the church and went back to, 'maybe we should not have a tree', ... one night we're sitting around with my brother and the kids not feeling very christmas-y without a tree so aj, my brother, said, 'well lets go get one right now'. john suggested, of all places, Big Lots, where of course it is ok to go into the store at 9:30pm in your jammies (which i was), and suddenly off we all went. TO BIG LOTS!! ta-daa! (odd. i know).

we get there and the only tree that looked like anything worth having and wasn't a million bucks (at big lots?) was gone except for the floor model. the guy said, 'you can have that one'. uhh, ok. so, it seems that for only $90 we were able to walk out of the store with a lovely, PRE-LIT thank you very much, and only THREE PIECE artificial tree. it was the oddest, EASIEST thing EVER. threw it in the back of the van, drove 5 minutes home, we each carried a piece in the house, stacked it in the living room, 1-2-3, plugged it in, ...DONE.

DONE i say! and the angels sang b/c it was the ONLY thing in 2008 to go easily.
i mean it.

so how's this all tie to john's illness?

i'm getting to it. long post, i know. you can take an intermission if you like.

continuing...
so we pull in the bin with the ornaments and unload it and then i remember, ... i threw everything out last year. all we have are what the kids have made or what's been given to the kids. hmmm. ok, well, that will have to do. it's not going to win me a cover shot on the O at Home Magazine Special Holiday Edition, but whatever. so we put everything on, 1-2-3, and were done in like 5 minutes.

FIVE minutes i say! and the angels sang again.

so there it was, our tree for '08. we had a tree.
and then...

it was the next day and i found that i was looking at that tree a lot. a-LOT.
seriously, i look at it a lot even still.
that tree speaks to me. it captivates me. it comforts me.
let me tell you what i see...

-popsicle sticks glued in the shape of a perfect star with flashy sequins stuck on and a picture of Mary in the middle.

-gingerbread men and Bob the Builder and the Cat in the Hat (those who know kids shows and stories will know what i mean).

-a pic of Noah dressed in angelic white with a halo of golden fuzz and white feather angel wings cut from the shape of his little hands.

-candy canes and snowmen and pengins.

-the rear end of a green-painted, foam grinch sticking out of a toilet paper roll chimney made by Isaiah.

-ribbons and homemade photo frames of little pre-k townsons and glass blown ornaments made by the tiny mouths of my children.

-painted tiny handprints and 1st grade foam reindeer and pics of john and me in bettter days.

-snow flakes cut by little hands and painted pine cones and a silver bell crafted by an upside down, aluminum foil-covered dixie cup.

-a kindergarten wreath made of dried shredded wheat cereal covered by green food coloring with a bright red bow for hanging.

-the biggest, fattest, hand woven, laminated, paper plate ornament you've ever seen. it hangs on the tree like a festive, surreal dinner plate.

and all of this is on the most perfectly lit, three piece, easy-schmeazy, lovelist tree you've ever seen. no stress. no mess. no huge amount of money. no hours wasted fixing lights or straightening branches, and no allergies flared.
...just love.

and THEN, .... and i mean REALLY then, ... the angels sang.

b/c i got it. it clicked.
THIS is what matters: my family.
THIS is the only thing that didn't fall apart this year.
THIS and God's grace are what got us through.

the '08 townson tree is the most wonderful, perfect, fun, festive, beautiful, colorful, tree in ALLLLL the land. trees on magazine covers pale in comparison b/c my FAMILY decorated this tree in love over the last ten years and i failed to recognize or value that.

shame on me. and thank you God that i get it now.

i must look at that tree adoringly 15 or 20 times a day. it represents what john and i created.
it will stay up until Ukrainian new years (jan 13th) in honor of my grandma ("Goo") who passed this year. she 'got' me. she showed me kindness in my childhhood. she valued family. she adored my kids. she adopted john as her son. she is on my tree too... at the top of the tree hangs a gorgeous, pain-stakingly hand-made ornament made for me by my grandpa Hydzik (Goo's husband, also passed).

2008 sucked ass. it really did. you can't fight me on that.
john's health. really stressful stuff at my work. the economy. grad school obsticles. our finances.
and i thank God that it happened exactly as it did.

i still have a lot to learn, but i think that john's illness helped me successfully graduate to the next grade. lessons learned.

life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. it's about learning to dance in the rain.

thank you for giving a crap about my family, checking in on this blog, and praying for us.
may God bless you the way He's done us.
now bring on 2009!

xoxo
k