Both of my parents are gone. My dad, twenty years. My mother, six.

As soon as my mother passed, I felt like an orphan. There’s nothing like knowing at least one parent is alive to give you a feeling of security in the world.  Even if you aren’t asking for help. Even if they aren’t well enough to help.

When I was in high school, my last grandparent died, my father’s mother. He himself was almost sixty years old. The morning after he received the call, I passed his bedroom doorway on my way to the kitchen.  He was always an early riser, out and about way before me, but that morning, he laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t even seem to know I had walked by. I realized at that moment, it didn’t matter how old the parent was or how old the child was, it was difficult to lose someone who had loved you unconditionally. 

The year my own father died, I was traveling for work, six months after his death. In a restaurant, a woman, a stranger, was sitting in the next table, and we struck up a conversation. I shared that my father had died earlier in the year and that I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas without him. I told her how wonderful he was—funny, caring, clever.  She shared her own parents were also deceased. And that she didn’t miss them. 

“They were mean people,” she said.  “You are fortunate you had a father you can miss.”

That sentence changed my life and the way I viewed his passing. Yes, ironically, I was lucky I had a father worthy of missing. I had a mother worth missing too.

Holidays bring such goodness but also remind us of deep loss. It is obvious who isn’t with us. We have memories we wish we could hop back into, even if for only an evening. In place of living in the past, we hold onto stuff as if we were holding the hands of those who are gone. In decorating for Christmas, in opening up an ornament box, in taking out a Spode dish, or an item made in my father’s workshop, the gift giver’s face floods back, their voice echoes in my ears.

This year, due to a move, these Christmas memories are in storage. Yet my heart hasn’t  been tucked away, and Christmas is still coming.

Our gorgeous simple tree doesn’t have one of my normal ornaments on it. There is no garland encircling it. No angel sits at the top. Yet it shines. It beams. At night, the warmth of its glow fills my heart and brings me back to my childhood of a loving Christmas Eve. 

Growing up, there were thirteen of us in my immediate family—my older sisters had their families already. My mother was determined to make my six nieces and nephews remember the purpose of Christmas and to get use out of my dreaded organ lessons. On Christmas Eve, I played “silent night” while my parents, sisters, and brothers-in-law sang. My six nieces and nephews, in rotating order of age, lined up and carried baby Jesus to the manger before we opened our gifts.  I’m not sure if my mother’s plan worked, but it gave us a family tradition we still chuckle about today. The bright night of the holiday with its twinkling lights and oplatki of the Slovak tradition have remained special to this day.

Except this year is different. Instead of eating with family on Christmas Eve, I will prepare a dinner for the two of us and deliver plates of roast beef and mashed potatoes to neighbors who are staying home alone to be safe. As a child, Christmas Day was always a quiet, alone day with my parents. My sisters were with their in-laws’ families. My mother’s parents were gone, my dad’s too faraway. I cherished the openness of that day, having all the time in the world to play with my gifts from Santa. 

This year, I capture back that day. Just me and my Santa. The day, this season, is a gift really. It’s giving me time to reflect on Christmas, and more importantly, my own life.

That leads me to ponder. Do I stop putting up more decorations next year? Do I need them anymore? Or do I resume as normal, using them as clues to jog my memories.

My father of German heritage liked simple and neat. He married a saver. I am a blend. So my future Christmas will be a blend. A little bit more than this year. But not much more. Just enough to pay homage to Christmases gone by.

Scrooge learns to keep Christmas in his heart all year round.  In doing so, I will keep the memories alive all year too. I won’t necessarily need prompts. Yet, I’m not quite ready to let everything go and live as an austere monk.

And I will continue to toast my parents. Yes, I am lucky to have had parents whom I could miss. And miss them I do, but they will be sitting with us in spirit on Christmas Eve as they do every night, whether I have a tree up or not.