And so this week’s moment of happiness, despite the news.
I’m writing this post a day early, on Christmas Eve, as tomorrow, I will be busy with family. I am also all alone right now, with the exception of two young orange cats. Two of my big kids, as I call them, are at their father’s house. One big kid is living in Louisiana. Michael’s and my daughter, Olivia, is out with her boyfriend.
And of course, Michael is gone.
This morning, I finished reading the book, The Year Of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion. I’d been told to read this book a lot, since Michael died on June 19th, 2024. I bought it, but resisted reading it. As I wrote last week, I just read A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas, and I got so much out of it, I decided to try The Year Of Magical Thinking.
At first, I hated it and nearly gave up on the book. Didion is very lofty in her writing. Her husband dies at the beginning of the book, but then the majority of the book is spent on the illness of her daughter, who was in the hospital at the time. I even looked back at the description of the book, to see if I’d misunderstood when I thought the book was about grief over losing her husband. I didn’t misunderstand. But then, with the daughter’s release from the hospital and then rehab, we shifted into grief. And suddenly, I was sitting right beside Didion.
This morning, as I sat in my recliner, the condo empty but for those two cats, I drank great coffee, had breakfast, and read. Near the end of the book, and the end of Didion’s first year without her husband, I read these lines:
“The craziness is receding, but no clarity is taking its place.
I look for resolution and find none.”
I am nearing the second anniversary of the accident, Michael’s being hit and run over by a passenger van, on January 17, 2024, heralding the start of what was five months of hell for him. And five months of hell for us. This culminated in his death, despite his trying so very hard to survive. And I read those lines this morning, and I felt them down to my bones.
Then I looked up at Michael’s urn, sitting on the piano across the room from me. Atop the urn, as if the urn was his head, sat what we called Michael’s elf hat. I put it there yesterday.
It is actually a jester’s hat, complete with little bells. When Michael and I moved in together, he came with the hat. I have no idea why he had one. All I know is that he had it for years…longer than he was with me.
That hat, and an ornament that looks like a spatula, define Michael at Christmastime. The spatula was a gift from his nephew, Danny, who was a little boy at the time. When I asked Michael why a spatula, that first Christmas together, he laughed and said, “I have no idea. It may have been what he could afford. But it goes on the tree every year.”
It is on the tree this year. And the hat is on the urn.
Last year, I just couldn’t handle putting up the Christmas tree. It meant going to get the Christmas things from our off-site storeroom, and opening that storeroom door meant coming face to face with many things belonging to Michael. I couldn’t do it. I bought an old ceramic tabletop Christmas tree, like those from the 80s, and set it up on my island. We put the presents around it on the island. It was the best I could do.
This year, I said okay to the tree. My son Andy and Olivia put it up and decorated it. I couldn’t bring myself to actually join in, but I watched, and I’ve admired the tree ever since. I eventually put on 3 ornaments that I added this year. One shows five animals in front of a fireplace. Two orange cats, one long-haired and one short-haired, are looking at three others, a small gray cat, another orange cat, and a brown and white dog. The orange cats are saying, “You know, they still miss you.” And the three others are saying, “We know. We are always with them.” The names are under the animals: Oliver and Cleocatra, the two orange cats with me today. Edgar Allen Paw, Muse, and Ursula, the three I’ve lost. Another ornament was drawn by Kami Cotler, who played Elizabeth on the Waltons, my favorite TV show. It shows the Waltons family on the porch, and she signed the back. And the last is a wooden penguin from the zoo.
When we put the tree up, I asked Olivia where the elf hat was. Olivia’s been wearing it on Christmas ever since she became old enough to hand out the presents. I thought the hat was in her closet. She came out with a hat, but it wasn’t it. “No,” I said. “It’s a jester’s hat, remember? With bells?” She looked at the hat she brought out and shrugged. “This is the only one I have,” she said.
And so I questioned my memory. But how could I misremember a jester’s hat that I knew for as long as I knew Michael?
Yesterday, I went upstairs to dig through the Christmas stuff again, looking for one more small stocking for my new grandcat, Kubota. This past spring, I gathered the courage to go through the storeroom, sort, donate, throw away, and bring home. I was able to bring home the Christmas stuff and get rid of the storeroom. Digging now through the tub holding garland and Christmas stockings, I found the small stocking that used to belong to my grandcat, Alfadore, but now will belong to Kubota. I found it quickly, but then felt a push to dig further.
At the bottom of the tub, the jester’s hat.
If one can hug the non-existent stuffing out of a hat, that’s what I did.
I brought it and the stocking downstairs. Michael’s stocking, by the way, is on our stairway with the others, even though there won’t be anything in it. There won’t be anything in mine either. I hung Kubota’s stocking and then turned to the urn.
“Here you go,” I said, removing the wrong hat and putting on the right one. I adjusted the streamers, making the bells jingle.
There’s a spatula on my tree. There’s a jester’s hat on Michael.
While clarity remains elusive, and there’s been no resolution, I can look at the urn, and look at the hat, ring the bells as I go by.
And that will have to do. Merry Christmas, everyone. Love those you’re with.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
