To all who know me well (you poor souls), you are aware that I send out an annual Christmas letter around this time of the season. But, I’m sorry to tell you that I will not be sending out Christmas cards or my happy little Christmas letter this year. Now, I realize that this will be a great disappointment for many, so I’m giving you notice in an effort to save you countless hours of waiting by the mailbox as you hold a vigil for a Christmas letter that will never arrive. So, pull up your tent stakes; roll up your sleeping bags, put out the campfire in the front yard, and snuff out the lantern. There will be no letter for the Christmas of 2020. I just didn’t have my Christmas mojo this year. But! All is not lost! I’ve decided to write a Merry Christmas missive which I will also post on my personal FB page, as well.
NOTE: This is a LOOOOOOONG post, and I know you are busy and dedicated people, so if you would rather not slog through my usual poly-syllabic silliness, you can skip to the section below, bracketed in asterisks. That section will contain Steve’s latest medical update. OK?
Christmas. My favorite time of year. I have loved Christmas my entire life, and it has loved me right back. I remember the first Christmas Steve and I celebrated together in our new apartment. We had been married for three months, and when December finally descended upon us, we carefully chose a dark green spruce at the local Boy Scout Christmas Tree sale. It had been trimmed into a perfect cone shape, and I would have settled for nothing less. I have always preferred perfect symmetry and balance over the romantic but rather desperate custom of salvaging a, “Charlie Brown tree,” and then rendering it into a pitiable wannabe. (I’ve probably ruined your opinion of me at this point, but I suppose everyone has to have a flaw. Let this be mine. )
After choosing our perfectly appointed tree, we raced to the local K-Mart (this was the pre-Walmart era folks), where I chose several strands of twinkle lights, along with cartons and cartons of green, red, blue and gold, glass ornaments; (and of course, we threw in the ubiquitous Christmas tree stand, as well).
That evening, Steve carried the tree over one shoulder and casually hauled the imposing tree up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. I recall that I fussed over the correct tree placement, and worried that the tree was too big for our small apartment; but it was a perfect fit…almost as if it had been waiting just for us.
After we finished decorating the tree, we turned out all the lights, and gazed at our glowing—almost mystical—Christmas tree. It was…perfect. I remember thinking that this was a moment outside of time, and somehow even then, I knew I would always remember that otherworldly moment. And I always have. Our first Christmas tree was, and still is the most beautiful Christmas tree I have ever seen. It felt like a good omen; a sign that the galaxy approved. And to my way of thinking everything was exactly as it should be.
That was 42 years, two children and seven grandchildren ago. Over the decades we have celebrated so many festive and merry Christmases with family and friends, food and laughter; gift-giving and eggnog dares! It has truly been a wonderful life (if you’ll pardon the intended pun.) Indeed—every Christmas has been more wonderful than the preceding Christmas, and my constant affection for Christmas has never waned.
But. (You knew there would be a, “but,” didn’t you? You felt it coming. I know you did.)
This Christmas. This Christmas…will be different. As everyone knows, Steve has been assailed with extreme and traumatic health issues for the past 20 years: A titanium plate in his spine, a punctured aorta, a strangled lung, a thoracotomy, a life-threatening infection, a gangrenous gall bladder, septic shock (with multi-organ failure), cryptogenic cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease, a liver transplant, TWO more thoracotomies this fall, and now…chronic malnutrition, and permanent lung damage. (I could probably write a new version of the 12 Days of Christmas with that list.) In the words of Steve’s transplant doctors: “This is a very unusual outcome for a liver transplant recipient.”
Indeed.
But to those of us who know Steve, we cannot claim to be completely surprised. He never does anything the easy way. He was always a risk taker—a dare devil—perpetually tempting fate. Only now, fate has come to collect the inevitable toll that Steve has accumulated throughout his life.
******Steve has been in and out of the hospital for a month and a half. He came home last Friday (12/11), with a new diagnosis. He has permanent and significant lung damage from the liver transplant, combined with his extreme medical history, and compounded by the damage that has been done to his thoracic cavity from past traumas. In short: he is struggling to breathe. He has lost two thirds of his lung capacity, and he cannot even leave his chair without gasping for air. He is also struggling to maintain his weight. He has lost 100 pounds now, and no longer has any desire to eat. He is subsisting on high protein/calorie drinks which are literally keeping him alive. The doctors tell us that Steve might get better with ANOTHER thoracotomy (which means opening the chest yet again, decorticating the lung—then placing the lung in a different area, which may provide more room for the damaged lung to expand). Of course, this cannot happen now, because Steve is not eating, and he has to be strong enough to survive another surgery…and he is not. We are working diligently to increase his strength, but immediate relief, and a foreseeable plan remain elusive. ******
And so, life is not what it was. We have entered into a new and often blunt reality. The ghost of Christmas present is not a jolly, overweight dude with holly in his hair. Christmas present is really a thin, reedy shadow of Christmases past.
Realizing that things were about to change dramatically, I used my powers of forethought, and bought a new Christmas tree last year. It’s not a real tree, and it’s very light—only 12 pounds according to Amazon, and just 6 feet high. I knew I needed a tree I could lift, decorate, appreciate and take down all by myself. This year my grandchildren helped me put up my little tree, because Steve was in UVA in Charlottesville, and even if he had been home, he would have been too weak to help me.
Things are different now, and there is a certain layer of melancholy to our Christmas. But--even now...even now...I still love Christmas. It still harbors starry and mysterious nights, with faint strains of carols and bells drifting on currents of frozen air. The aromas of gingerbread and cinnamon still fill my house, and the love and laughter of my *perfect* grandchildren fill my heart with perpetual gratitude for all that we have been given and all that we still have.
My new Christmas tree is not nearly as beautiful as my first Christmas tree, that is fundamentally impossible—but it’s still quite pretty, and a constant reminder of all the wonderful Christmases that came before.
And yes! The anticipation of Christmas Eve still lives on in my soul…for nothing—not human events, or tragedies, pandemics or the icy polar vortex can stop the anticipated arrival of the Feast of the Incarnation: Emmanuel—“God with us”—is still coming into the world.
Just knowing that, fills me with wonder.
Merry Christmas.
Love ya’ll.
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