Bittersweet

Bittersweet

Originally published on December 19, 2014

Twenty years ago I sat in a church committee meeting discussing plans for the Christmas Eve midnight service.  As the Elder in charge of finding people to serve communion, I found the job quite a challenge, particularly because of the late hour we would need them.  However, I was able to compile a list of names and shared that information with the committee members.

"That's great, Katie," a woman to my left sniffed.  "And we think you should stay after the service and clean up the communion table.  We all have families to get home to and you don't have any children for Santa to visit."

At the time I was in my late twenties and surrounded by friends who were getting married.  Having baby number one.  Baby number two.  Even marriage number two.  I wasn't dating anyone, but not for lack of want.  That woman's thoughtlessness cut me off at the knees, but I pasted a smile on my face and nodded while blinking back tears.

Yes, I was single.  (I still am.)  Yes, I was childless.  (I still am.)  But why, oh why, did she have to make me sound like such a pariah just because I didn't belong to the Mommy and Me club?  And why did she automatically assume that because I didn't have a nuclear family of my own that I also had nothing else planned?  I drove home that night both furious at the woman's callous comments, but also licking the open wound of wanting what I didn't have.  It was nothing new.  For more than a decade, every time the holidays rolled around, I was blatantly aware of being a bachelorette in a sea of couples and new babies.

         

On Christmas Eve I did my duty.  I stood in front of the entire congregation with a plate of bread in my hands and watched family after family share communion.  I stood in the choir loft and watched them share the hymnal.  At the end of the service, I lit candles at the end of the pews and watched while parents helped their children hold their little cups carefully so they wouldn't drip wax on their tiny hands.  And when it was all over and everyone had gone home, I stood at the kitchen sink washing the platters and pitchers and silverware.  Alone. 

Well, not really. 

The janitor was busy sweeping the vestibule and I could hear the whirl and buzz of the vacuum while I swiped at my tears and kept working.  I wanted a husband to help me.  A child to read to before bedtime.  A little stocking to stuff by the fireplace and toys to leave beneath the tree.  But I knew I would soon be going home to an empty house.  A quiet living room.  A silent sanctuary. 

When I had finished, it was nearly one-thirty.

"You need me to walk you to your car?" the janitor asked.

"Nope...I'm good," I said, pulling on my coat and mittens. 

"Well, you be careful now," he smiled.  "Merry Christmas."

I nodded.  "Same to you."

As I crossed into the parking lot, a light snow was falling.  Dazzling flakes sparkled in the glow of the streetlamps and as I looked up, the hazy full moon shone down on the shimmering streets.  I stood next to my car and gazed around the intersection that for the entire holiday season had been abuzz with shoppers galore.  The corner of Talmadge and Sylvania is notorious this time of year...and an area I avoid like the plague.  But at that moment, on a silent night in the heart of Toledo, I was the only person standing there.  The only one to witness that miraculous moment. 

I walked to the edge of the street and listened to the hush.  Felt the snowflakes dotting my cheeks and chin.  Marveled at how I would have missed this moment if that woman hadn't been so pushy in insisting I stay late after the service.  I imagined she and the other ladies were at home frantically pulling toys from the closet.  Wrapping gifts to stash under the tree.  Searching through drawers for batteries to pop into the fire engine, the new game, or whatever else needed a missing power source.

Yet in that moment, I realized my own source of power wasn't in having what I wanted...but in experiencing what I had -- all of it.  My grief and sadness over another year gone by and being no step closer to having a family of my own.  The anger and resentment I felt at having been singled out once again for being single.  Yet also the joy and peace I was experiencing all by myself in a moment I didn't expect at all.

I drove home through the snow and when I pulled up in the driveway, the lights inside were burning bright.  One of my cats was peeking through the curtains.  I knew that a hot cup of cocoa and a warm bed were awaiting me.  I would survive another holiday season and move forward, just like I always had in the past.

Fast forward twenty years.  Here we are with Christmas looming just six days away.  Thank goodness I was well prepared as I've been uncommonly busy with publishing projects that were to be delivered this week. 

And they were...but not as I expected.

The interiors look great.  The spines and back covers are intact.  But the cover photos are non-existent...on every single one.  It was devastating to excitedly open a package that held the very first printed copies of work that has been more than fifteen years in the making, only to discover that the publisher's glitch would mean another delay in delivering the goods to my readers.  To see a stack of white paper instead of the colorful covers I had uploaded over the weekend brought tears of frustration...and I have to make peace with yet another roadblock, another setback.

I'll be diligent in rectifying the problem, even though the automated phone run-around is rampant this time of year.  In time the new books will arrive complete and I'll be able to move on to the next project, the next blog, or maybe even enjoy a little Christmas cheer.  But it's still a bittersweet thing to hold the blank ones in my hands in this office while I sit here alone. 

I've never been married and don't have a significant other.  There will never be any babies of my own.  But this year I've been able to birth six books, and for me that's quite an accomplishment.  Even though my literary kids arrived naked, I guess that's how we're all born.  And I suppose that's how many of us feel this time of year...tender, fragile, and incomplete because we're missing someone.  Something.  Someplace.

I've made peace with much of what I wasn't able to as a twentysomething young woman.  I know how blessed I am to live the life I do...to embody my choices in the person I am becoming.  In the home I nurture. In work that I love more each day.  But when the holidays roll around, little things push on bruises I thought had healed long ago.  I feel tiny pinpricks of pain from things that would have no power in the spring or summer or fall.  I find that I'm not alone in this place of mixed emotions.  Many of my friends are experiencing joy and grief and excitement and exhaustion.  It's a bittersweet time of year for us all, this time of intermingling nostalgia and hopeful anticipation. 

But I keep thinking about that Christmas Eve when I stood in silence watching the snow fall.  Smiling at the full moon.  Knowing that the best gifts don't need to be wrapped.  They don't need a cover photograph or even acknowledgment by others. 

They are moments of clarity and unexpected grace.  An email from a dear friend who has loved me since I was eleven years old.  A little puppy's kiss.  A hug from a person in need.  A good cry.  A hand to hold. 

And the ability to embrace them all with gratitude.