Nostalgia and Grief

This past Christmas, I celebrated with Craig. We sat next to our Christmas tree and watched old videos of my childhood. I found several old, dusty, VHS tapes and had them made into DVD's. I came home, popped in the DVD's one after another and laughed, smiled, and shed a few tears. It warmed my heart to hear my parents’ voices, to see my mom and dad open Christmas presents and kiss by the tree in our living room. It was the same living room that last week I stood in alone vacuuming the dust and mold from the room. The same room that long ago held laughter and Christmas trees and now was void of life. Now all that lives there are 1972 rust colored-curtains and green carpet matted down from 45 years of memory. I stood in that living room, closed my eyes and prayed that when I opened my eyes up again, I would be that ten-year old girl opening up my cassette tape player, porcelain doll, and seeing mom and dad. When I opened my eyes, I only saw pain and heartache. I watched a video of myself putting my great-grandmother, Ada St. George's hair in curlers back in 1990. I also watched as I laughed with my Auntie Vilma, Uncle Frank and snuggled on a couch with my Auntie Betty. It was the first time I watched a video where most of the people in the videos have passed. I was blessed that I found such a treasure in my mom and dad's house. I watched my dad driving down the road as we were all huddled in our white, VW van at Emerald Isle, Beach. I watched as I swam in a pool and my mother leisurely sat poolside in a lounge chair and soaked in the sun and a book. My mother was a voracious reader and watching her reading soothed my scarred and hollowed heart. I saw my dad dressed in his best shirt and Miami Vice white had with the black rim at my brother's birthday party. I saw myself as a naive, young girl, with the world in front of me. I watched as I walked in the Frazier fir trees in a Vermont field behind my uncle's house and soaked in the warm, earthy smell of Lake Champlain and the silly warming laugh of my grandmother. I only cried a few times during this second Christmas without my mom and the first without my dad. I laughed more than I had in months. It was great to feel my chest full with the coolness that laughter brings my insides. I was afraid that laughter was never going to find me again. It is strange how much death has changed me. It has curved and reshaped the landscape of my memory. The layers of memories are wide and full and trying to help me fill the holes of grief.