Under the Tree

As if getting ready for the holidays wasn't hard enough--trying to appear like I care whether Christmas comes or not--going to the store and not buying gifts for my son.

This week has been such a struggle.  I know it's different, but I know what it's like to have your child one day and not the next.  All I've been able to think about all week is the presents already under a tree for children who don't get to open them.  There's probably legos and barbies and hot wheels.  Moms and dads have to pick up those wrapped gifts and decide what to do with them.  The homemade macaroni ornaments just became the most treasured thing they own.
I have kept my news exposure to a minimum.  The first day I heard reporters and police officers say the most asinine things.  "Healing" and "closure" and "back to normal".  I even heard one cop say it was as hard on them as it was on the families.  Wow.

Tonight I finally blew.  I started stressing about being with family for Christmas.  Everyone will be together--not.  We'll go out to dinner; there'll be photos and hugs and everyone saying how much the kids have grown.  Ian won't be there. 

I got 16 Christmases with him.  Some of 'em were touch and go.  Now they're just gone.

Honor

I heard a quote recently and don't really know who the original source is.  On the internet it is attributed to both Plato and Louis Pasteur.  I guess it doesn't really matter.  It's a good thought either way.

"What is honored in  a country is cultivated there."

I remember when I was in Hong Kong, there were trading cards in all the little shops with movie and pop stars faces on them.  I thought it was so ridiculous.  I was so glad it wasn't that way in the states.  Fast forward 20 years.  In our society today, what is revered more than celebrity?  Whether it is music or movies or sports or just the latest idiot who is willing to bare all on reality TV.  That's what we, as a  society, are honoring these days and that is what we are cultivating.

Sick huh?

Wouldn't it be great if we honored hard work or paying your own way or fulfilling your commitments?  Wouldn't it be great if everyone wasn't looking for the easiest, fastest, most self-promoting way to get ahead?

I'm certainly not above the fray.  I let Lucy fill out the Publisher's Clearinghouse every time it comes and even though I don't do it, I always want to by a powerball when the jackpot gets big. 

Wish I could think of a way to turn the tide; help everyone honor something worthwhile and cultivate something new.

Yeah that was kind of a lazy post. Oh well.  It's a good thought even if I didn't expound on it well.

Dylan's Suit

I have note cards and scraps of paper sitting here at the desk for all the posts I shoulda woulda coulda done in November.  There are even some things that I feel really strongly about.  I miss typing away here.   There are many reasons I haven't been doing it.  First, I'm tired at night.  I have stopped staying up til 2 or 3 in them morning, at least most of the time.  Second, I spend my 4 hours a day at work on the computer.  Third, the kids do their homework and all their recreational surfing right here on this computer.  Fourth, Keith is a busy bee answering all his bishop emails.  Fifth, and most likely, I have found less churning ways to cope.  Ways that don't bare my soul or leave me in tears or even remind me how lonely I am.

One of them that's not on my note cards is Dylan's suit.  There's a boy in my ward.  He's about 13, close to 14 I think.  He's getting taller every week.  He's even getting a shadow under his nose.  He's a great kid and I think a lot of him.  He's always respectful and doesn't treat Mikey like the younger kid in the group.  He wears a navy blue suit to pass the sacrament.  He's been growing out of it for a while.  You can see about 2 inches of wrist now. 

Long before Thanksgiving his mom told me it would be a very practical Christmas this year.  Dylan needs a new suit.  I told her she should keep an eye out at thrift stores.  She could find a real bargain.  This is where the story goes somewhere nobody could expect.  From the first conversation many weeks ago until now, every week when I see him passing the sacrament, I notice the suit.  And then my mind drifts to the suit I bought Ian at a thrift store.

He and his best friend wanted to be the Blues Brothers for Halloween one year.  I took the two of them shopping for suits for their costumes.  Chad was easy to find the size because he was much bigger than Ian, but since I was buying both of them, it needed to be dirt cheap.  Ian's on the other hand, was tricky because he was so small.  I think at the time the boys  were 12, maybe 13 and he was about as narrow across the shoulders as any 12 year old ever was.  We finally found something that might work.  It was a size 16.  It was a really high quality wool, black on black pinstripe suit.  It hung on him and we pinned the pant legs up.  It was one of the best costumes ever.  He and Chad won the costume contest and had a great time.

That's the suit we buried Ian in.

At 15 it fit him perfectly and he looked so handsome in it.  He should have blessed the sacrament in it his first time;  Could have gone on some dates in it.

I guess if you love Halloween and you want to go shopping at thrift stores with your mom. . .

I hope Dylan doesn't get a thrift store suit.