WE TREATED THE EXTENDED family portion of Christmas Day the way we did Christmas Eve…the way we always had. It was never a big production, pretty much just dinner at my mom’s, but it was always nice and it was something I always looked forward to.
I’m not sure of the exact moment but at some point as the morning slipped away, so did my cheeriness. I tried my best to block out the ugliness, but it kept picking at my brain that this was the last Christmas. I put on a bold face, but I went through the day pretty much with my guard up. Out of the corner of my eye, I kept an eye on the girls. I wanted to make sure they didn’t slip into sadness that would taint their Christmas, their last Christmas with their Mom.
I started feeling a little better as we walked through the door of my mom’s house. My family had been a source of strength for me, and I was thankful for that. Sometimes it was something they said and sometimes it was just being able to sit with them and not talk about anything. They had a very calming affect on me.
This day, however, had the potential to be disastrous and if I were smart, I would have talked to my family before that night about how to treat things. Last night was one thing, but today was the actual holiday and if there was any day that people would dwell on Gina, today would be it. With so much going on it slipped my mind to lay down some ground rules for the situation with them, but God love my family, they were appropriate throughout the entire evening. That’s not to say they didn’t show the love. It was more evident that night than it had been probably in years but it seemed to come from a place of thankfulness and genuine love for our family than of pity or despair. Nobody dwelled on the issue at hand and I know that made Gina a lot more comfortable.
My sister Robyn and Gina stole away for a bit and that was actually kind of nice. They had become close throughout this whole ordeal because Robyn’s such a great nurse and to be honest, it made me feel good that Gina had her to turn to. But sitting there, watching them from across the room, my brain began to flash-forward to the next year. It was like watching a movie, knowing that it was never going to be like this again. Like I said, I spent that evening with one foot in the present and one playing out scenes and being scared shitless of what lay ahead for me. I was able to filter myself though. I had a lot of things that I wanted to say to my mother or sister or whatever, but I didn’t.
Leaving had this unspoken weirdness to it. At least for me anyway. We gathered up the kids like normal but when everyone was giving their goodbye hugs as we walked out the door, I slipped back into “movie watching” mode. It appeared as though Gina felt it was normal, not like it was her last Christmas, so I made sure I appeared that way too. But I sure as hell didn’t feel that way. Any sense of normalcy left me early that morning.
I held a lot in that day. Once we got home, we put the kids to bed and that was a real out-of-body experience for me. I kind of stepped back and let her do it, but it was painful to watch. She was struggling both physically and emotionally. We tried for a normal goodnight, and thankfully, the kids were oblivious to the magnitude of the moment. They were in their beds, gave us both kisses, told us they loved us, and wished us a Merry Christmas one last time.
When we were finally safe in our bedroom and the day was officially behind us, I felt the pressing need to talk to Gina about a lot of things. The problem was I didn’t want to spoil what had up until this point been a great holiday, so I didn’t press the issue. I just kept the sadness buried. Besides, she was all fired up because tomorrow was the day her family was scheduled to fly in. I wasn’t fired up about it. I wasn’t a big fan of her family, but seeing her so genuinely excited and looking forward to something, it was hard not to be excited for her.
That’s kind of how it was at this point. I was much more in tune with her…much more than ever before. I was much more attentive to her needs. I tried to make her comfortable and take care of things since I knew she would never ask. I’d get her pills, rub her back, and rub her feet. That was always big with her. Her feet were so swollen you could see in her eyes how good it felt to have someone rub them. It always scared me because she’d become so frail and riddled with pain I was always scared I would hurt her. But you just play it by ear and end up finding your groove, figuring out where that line is between pleasure and pain.
That night, we went to bed in two totally different frames of mind. I lied there recapping the day’s events and put a dark bookmark on it, knowing I had just experienced my last Christmas with my wife, while she was excited for her family’s arrival the next day.