Each Christmas, something triggers a memory from my childhood. I used to dread this occurrence each year, but as I grow older, I have come to cherish this feeling and dread it at the same time. The memory is of me sitting in my mom's car as a little girl with the radio on. I heard the song, "Blue Christmas" sung by Elvis Presley. Cheezy, right? I was a pretty young girl, but I remember crying and thinking about how much I missed my Grandpa Burks who had passed away. Each year of my life since I was five, I have heard that song and felt that same sadness, but the list of people that I think of while it plays has grown. I carry this list of people who have passed with me all the time and I have resigned myself to the process of living and dying. I'm not a really good griever. I always focus too much on the regreats and not enough on the good times. Usually, what I call "grieving" is just me pretending like they never died. I'm working on it, though, and I accept myself where I am. It's a waste of time not to.
As my wise friend Diane would say, "growing older is a series of losses." This may sound morbid to some, but I think accepting life "as it is and not as I would have it," as is stated in the Serenity Prayer, is a major key to peace in a world of strife and loss.
The good news? In Mark 12, it says, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." These people who have died in Christ are not dead. In fact, they are more alive than we are! I am not always comforted by this in my grief, but I know this is God's truth. That will have to carry me through until I arrive HOME to my Father and see my brothers and sisters again. What a great day that will be!
Here's my list as of Christmas 2010:
I'll probably forget some folks, but that's the hazard of blogging with six other people making noise in my house.
(In fairly sequential order from the age of five up until now)
Grandpa Lemuel Burks
Brent Paladino
Karlos Highfill
Amanda Sherwood
Uncle Clyde Allen
Bonnie Garner
Betty Thompson
Granny Vera Burks
Mike McMurrough
Lottie Ramsey
Feliz (oops can't remember my great aunt's last name)
Marie (again, I have forgotten these aunts married names)
Jessica Morgan
Joyce Hazlett
Christa Stramel
Robert Toon
Here are the lyrics: (minus the ladies singing the high pitched singing of the ooh, ooh, wee, ooh )
I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you’re not here with me
And when the blue snowflakes start falling
That’s when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doing alright with your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue ChristmasYou’ll be doing alright with your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue Christmas
