A Gift From My Mother

As I've written before, my parents and I have not communicated since 1999, and my Mother has recently been diagnosed with terminal Pancreatic Cancer.  

Several months ago, I wrote my Mother a letter hoping that we could put the past behind us.  That was not to happen, but I hoped she would at least write me back.  She did, and I was extremely sad, angry and disappointed with the letter.  It was very clear that too many years had gone by for any sort of reconnection to happen before her death.  I wished that I hadn't even received the letter to begin with.  To make things even more confusing, she mentioned she was going to send me a set of Christmas dishes.  I was confused because the lack of emotion in her letter and then then telling me she was sending me dishes to remember her by just didn't "fit".  

 Christmas was HUGE in our family, and it was all driven by my Mother.  One Saturday morning soon after Thanksgiving I would wake to hearing Barbara Streisand's Christmas  Album playing, and I knew Mom was putting up the Christmas decorations.  I would hop out of bed, super excited and go help her.  We would spend the entire day putting up the horrible live Charlie Brown tree she would buy every year, and all the other items she had saved over the years that we had made her or that had sentimental value.  My Mom was a very sentimental person, and our decorations reflected that.  Old antique family ornaments that were literally falling apart went on the tree right next to the old ornaments my brother and I made over the years at school.  Her garland was 20 years old and threadbare, but it was sentimental and on the tree.  We always used tinsel, because we always used tinsel.  Our home was steeped in tradition at Christmas, thanks to Mom.   We counted down the days to Christmas and Mom and I shared a ridiculous excitement that it was coming.  We planned our baking and candy making months ahead, and spent a good portion of the holidays in the kitchen.

When I had Shandi, I carried over so many of those traditions with her.  The thick sugar cookies that were my Mom's all time favorite, the tacky tree, putting jammies on and driving around looking at the Christmas lights on Christmas Eve, and putting up my tree to the sound of Christmas music that would wake Shandi, and she would help me the way I helped my Mom.  I was repeating my own childhood traditions over again.

After we had our falling out, those traditions hurt.  The first few Christmases after I lost my family were terribly painful.  I felt lost almost.  I dreaded Christmas coming, unpacking the reminders of old Christmases that reminded me of home, and I knew the only way I would really ever enjoy Christmas again was to start over and make our own family traditions.  I realize now that is really a part of growing up, and that everyone has to start their own traditions, but it was more painful for me because of what I had lost in the process.  

Over the next few years we made our own traditions and started new things.  I switched some things around and Christmas became fun again, and wonderful.  I still missed my Mom more than anything around the holidays because of all the time we spent together in the kitchen, shopping, and making memories.  

Some years ago Joe bought me some Christmas china as a Christmas gift.   Before he bought it, he sent me out to look at patterns and I became incredibly sad when I saw my Mom's Christmas china pattern staring up at me in the store.  Long ago, I would have snapped that pattern up because it reminded me of home and of her, but it was far too painful to have as my own china pattern.  Instead I chose the traditional Spode Christmas Tree pattern, because it reminded me of my Grandma. 

When my Mother mentioned Christmas dishes in her letter, I had no idea what dishes she was talking about.  I kept racking my brain wondering what she was sending me, and then I just shrugged it off and said "we'll see".  

And then I got the dishes.  Two days later the UPS man backed into my driveway with 7 huge boxes.  

I don't think I could use any other word than SHOCKED to describe how I felt when I saw that pile of boxes on my back step.  I carried them in the house one at a time, and sat at the table for 10 or 15 minutes gathering myself before I could even open them.  The disappointment from the wound of the letter was still very fresh in my heart, and I wasn't sure I could handle anything else.  

And I opened the boxes, one by one, to find that she had sent me her Christmas China.  "THE" Christmas China.  I never in a million years would have imagined the "dishes" she spoke of sending me would be her Christmas China.  I cried so hard when I opened those boxes, as the years of Christmas memories that I have tried so hard to bury came flooding back to me.  I was utterly confused at her gesture, because there is no way she would send me such a prized possession if she truly did not love me.  

I have chosen to interpret this gift as an unspoken message from her.  Her letter is not how she truly feels in her heart, this gift is how she feels.  I will cherish these dishes forever and ever, and I am so thankful she sent them.  These dishes are healing for me, they speak a thousand words of love to me from her without having to actually say a word.   I will lovingly mix my Mom's china and my own during the holidays, without sadness, because she would never want anyone to be sad at Christmas.