December 9, 2013 -- Remembering our Past

This Christmas is a turning of the page for me. This is not some earth shattering thing, but for some reason, it is important to me. You will probably think I am crazy to even think about it, but let me explain.

I finally broke down and bought a new Christmas tree.  There it is. It is out in the open.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? I guess it isn’t the buying of the new tree, it is the realization that I need to throw one away.  You see the tree that will be thrown away is the one that we have used every year since Justin was born. It has been in dozens of photographs and hours of Christmas videos. It is really the only tree that Santa has left presents under for the last 22 years.  It is the tree that Justin almost knocked over when he was five and sprawling under to get his next big gift.

I have always been a Christmasaholic. I was the guy that was going elbow to elbow with all of the crazy women shoppers at Hallmark the day after Christmas.  One year when we were staying with Julia’s parents we went to a mall that had two Hallmark stores and sent Julia’s brother running back and forth between them so we knew what each other was buying (pre-cell phone days.)

It was 23 years ago that Julia and I fell in love with a Christmas tree that was way over our budget. Today it would be a bargain, but at the time it was rather pricey. We waited until after Christmas hoping that it would drop more than the typical 50%.  We waited and waited but there was no further dropping of price.  It was February and the tree was still in the window just taunting us.

It was February 8, 1991 and we decided to drive across town to see if a miracle had happened and the price had dropped. The store was closed and I can remember Julia staying in the car while I went up to again check  if the price had dropped.  We decided to head home still debating if we should just splurge and buy the tree.

Just a few hours later, Julia went into labor and we were soon holding our first born.  The tree search became part of one of the most important nights in our lives.  After we returned home with Justin, we bought the tree.

The 21 Christmases have been wonderful, but there isn’t enough shipping tape to hold the old thing together. It was time to move on.  As a result, there is a Costco 9 foot tree with blinking LED lights flashing between white and multi-colored standing in our family room. It will be beautiful on Christmas morning, but there will still be something missing.

Sometimes in life we attach important moments or times in our lives to inanimate objects. For whatever reason, they bring back memories that are worth far more than the object ever was.  I have hundreds of old science fiction books that my dad read in the 1940’s and 50’s sitting in the basement.  I still have a couple of the sets of clothes that I wore as a baby that my Mother loving set aside. We keep mementoes from our senior prom or ticket stubs from our first game or concert. To someone else, they mean nothing, but to us, they mean the world. We always want to move on, but we love where we came from, sometimes is the strangest things that take us there.

Julia lost one of her dearest friends this last week. Robyn Driscoll fought a seeming endless war against breast cancer for almost a third of her life.  Robin was a fighter that refused to give in to the monster that stole her life well before her time.  But that was just a small part of who Robin was.  Everyone has nice words to say about someone after they die, but Robyn’s were completely deserved. She was a thoughtful, loving person that will be missed by many. Please keep Robyn’s family in your thoughts and prayers.

I feel so lucky with where I am in my own battle as I remain in remission heading into the new year.  We get caught up in our own lives sometimes, especially at Christmas.  Keep those that are fighting serious illness in your thoughts and remember to give a little gift to your own special charities as you never know when a cure might be found or a person’s life changed by your thoughtfulness.