Something has happened that really rocked my Christmas spirit.
I confess, I'm not a huge fan of Christmas. I enjoy the holiday season - the sense of celebration, good food, Christmas lights - but in most ways I'm a minimalist. I don't bake much, don't decorate until a very few days before Christmas, decoration is limited to a tree and some simple stuff in the living room, a string of lights outside. Presents are fun, and I really enjoy Christmas dinner at my parents, as well as spending time with friends and eating their Christmas baking. Growing up, Christ's birthday was surrounded by family birthdays; my dad and brother share December 17, my birthday is December 31, my mother's is January 11. So it's definitely a festive season for me.
What's interrupted the usual progression is a death. Not immediate family, not even anyone I had met, but someone else's daughter, a very kind someone else I know via a shared interest - house rabbits - and e-mail list membership. Ten days ago her only child, her 24-year old daughter, became ill with what seemed to be a simple UTI but was apparently an MRSA infection which within about 24-hours went system-wide, reaching and damaging her brain. On December 11, she abruptly lapsed into a coma from which she never emerged. She died early afternoon on December 20.
Like everyone who knew about this, I prayed for a cure, for recovery, for a miracle, and finally, for a swift and painless passage into death.
This particular mindless malevolence of fate and coincidence is REALLY hard for me to reconcile with celebrating birth and a general good will, and I'm barely brushed by this experience. All I can think is how devastating this must be for her parents, family, friends who until two weeks ago could reasonably have expected her to be on this earth for another sixty years, now faced with burying her just before Christmas.
Yes, I know; hug my kids, be thankful for my own kith and kin, be more appreciative, make more of my own life. Stop worrying so much about bills, spend more time doing useful/interesting/fun things. Value what I have more; appreciate how frail and precious is this life of ours, how quickly overset by circumstance.
And life, of course, goes on, for the rest of us. Somehow, that saving grace seems the bitterest irony.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Saturday, September 01, 2007
After a prolonged absence - 10 months? - decided to try another blog entry.
The problem is that while I'm happy to write about myself, I don't want to post anything which might embarrass another family member, which rules out 'funny stories' about family life, and I basically lead a quiet and ordinarily boring sort of life. Yep, get up and eat my oatmeal, send the kids to school (next week, YEAH!) kind of stuff. Nice to live but repetitive to read, I'm sure.
I've got strong opinions - pro Canadian government-funded health care, pro government-funded auto-insurance, somewhere out on the socialist left-fringe politically for most issues, although like many people I duck and flannel on hot-button issues that bring out any conservative tendencies.
Can we say abortion? Sure we can, I've never had one, never want to be in the position of contemplating one, and want nothing to do with dictating how any other woman has to respond to that issue. Given how many women half-killed and actually killed themselves getting illegal abortions prior to the 1970's I have a hard time saying making it illegal is a good thing. Having viewed via ultrasound my own personal interior astronauts looking quite human (even if totally unable to survive outside me at 11 weeks along) and counted fingers and toes as they swung into view... well, it may be another's decision, but I don't think it could be mine.
Since I have two kids, not ten, you can assume I believe in some limitations. I firmly believe in taking precautions, an approach helped by the astounding cost of raising kids. I am also not what one might call a 'natural' mother. I was dubious about the whole baby process, not all that eager to have kids, had them anyway, discovered that your own kids are much more interesting, cute, intelligent, funny (and so on) than any one else's and that said, found two kept me more than busy enough. Coming from a Roman Catholic background, without thinking about it particularly, I simply accepted kids as a normal consequence of getting married. My husband doesn't come from a Roman Catholic background, but his view is fairly similar - 'get married, have kids' is a normal part of the adult agenda.
I find it interesting that more people are staying single or are choosing not to have children. Both my parents (44 years) and my in-laws (54 years) are still married and John and I are going to be celebrating our 19th anniversary later this month, with all three marriages following the traditional 'male primary bread-winner/female child-raiser' model. However, neither my brother nor sister have chosen to have kids, and neither has John's brother. His sister had one kid. Three of the four of them are in relationships, one married, two not. Enough evidence for me that we're on the cusp of real change in our collective expectations of what being an adult brings.
The problem is that while I'm happy to write about myself, I don't want to post anything which might embarrass another family member, which rules out 'funny stories' about family life, and I basically lead a quiet and ordinarily boring sort of life. Yep, get up and eat my oatmeal, send the kids to school (next week, YEAH!) kind of stuff. Nice to live but repetitive to read, I'm sure.
I've got strong opinions - pro Canadian government-funded health care, pro government-funded auto-insurance, somewhere out on the socialist left-fringe politically for most issues, although like many people I duck and flannel on hot-button issues that bring out any conservative tendencies.
Can we say abortion? Sure we can, I've never had one, never want to be in the position of contemplating one, and want nothing to do with dictating how any other woman has to respond to that issue. Given how many women half-killed and actually killed themselves getting illegal abortions prior to the 1970's I have a hard time saying making it illegal is a good thing. Having viewed via ultrasound my own personal interior astronauts looking quite human (even if totally unable to survive outside me at 11 weeks along) and counted fingers and toes as they swung into view... well, it may be another's decision, but I don't think it could be mine.
Since I have two kids, not ten, you can assume I believe in some limitations. I firmly believe in taking precautions, an approach helped by the astounding cost of raising kids. I am also not what one might call a 'natural' mother. I was dubious about the whole baby process, not all that eager to have kids, had them anyway, discovered that your own kids are much more interesting, cute, intelligent, funny (and so on) than any one else's and that said, found two kept me more than busy enough. Coming from a Roman Catholic background, without thinking about it particularly, I simply accepted kids as a normal consequence of getting married. My husband doesn't come from a Roman Catholic background, but his view is fairly similar - 'get married, have kids' is a normal part of the adult agenda.
I find it interesting that more people are staying single or are choosing not to have children. Both my parents (44 years) and my in-laws (54 years) are still married and John and I are going to be celebrating our 19th anniversary later this month, with all three marriages following the traditional 'male primary bread-winner/female child-raiser' model. However, neither my brother nor sister have chosen to have kids, and neither has John's brother. His sister had one kid. Three of the four of them are in relationships, one married, two not. Enough evidence for me that we're on the cusp of real change in our collective expectations of what being an adult brings.
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