Lessons in Gratitude

Something happens to me in December: I turn into a big kid. Oh, most of the time I walk around looking like a completely normal, rational, fifty-something adult, but inside the inner kid in me is activated. In fact, I become more of a kid these days than I did when I was an actual child–in my early days I was a somewhat serious kid, what one would today refer to as an “old soul.” But in December all of my enthusiasm for the Christmas holidays comes roaring back. Today, in Western Christian liturgical terms, was the first Sunday of Advent, signaling the period of waiting for the arrival of the birth of Jesus. This morning I sat watching the first few moments of the weekly televised Catholic Mass and couldn’t help but sing along with the children’s choir as they opened with “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” one of my favorite seasonal hymns. It transports me back to childhood days–opening up the different little doors on the Advent calendar each day in December, each week lighting the candles on the Advent wreath, and counting down to Christmas day.

For many years, my nuclear family–my parents and my five siblings–celebrated Christmas with a variety of traditions that for many years included Christmas Eve midnight Mass at Moreau Seminary on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. When I was a kid we would have to take a nap during the late afternoon so we could stay awake through the Mass. We would always leave early to get there, in part because the chapel was small and people crowded in early to hear the choir of seminarians sing Christmas hymns. Often those evenings were snowy and cold. The night was hushed and beautiful, and even as a child I truly felt the words, “O Holy night.” Eventually we stopped going to midnight Mass at the Seminary–it had gotten too big and too much of an extravaganza from what had been a quieter, more intimate celebration. We attended Masses in a variety of venues over the subsequent years, but they were never quite the same.

Over the years Christmas was quite an extravaganza in our family. As we grew up and my older sisters went off to college, the flavor of the holiday shifted. Anticipation for the return of my siblings for the holidays added for me a level of excitement in what was already a terribly exciting time.  And even after folks married, some moving away from “home,” we still always gathered as a family, except on those rare occasions when one or another was away–like the year my parents and my younger sister and I were living in Uganda and for the first time celebrated Christmas away from our other siblings. Over time we alternated our family gatherings between South Bend and Washington, DC, where my older sisters lived. My parents would pile us in the car for the 10 hour drive and eventually we would caravan as different ones of us traveled in from different places. In the years since I moved away from our hometown I have missed only one Christmas away from  family; traveling back east from California six out of the seven years I lived out there.

I am grateful to have been able to connect with my siblings at holiday gatherings over the years. We stopped going to Mass as a family a number of years ago (it used to require reserving several pews for the 30-some people from three generations that once gathered), though a subset still goes each year. Many things have changed over time. After my mother’s death in 1995: some of the energy of the holiday celebrations seemed to diminish and after my father’s death in 2010 it diminished further. But for those of us who gather whenever and wherever we can, there is always laughter, love, and remembering. This year, as we did last year, we will likely gather in smaller, separate enclaves rather than as one large group. That makes me sad, though I am learning to accept it. I will miss my son, who will once again be stuck at work and unable to travel from California. So for the third Christmas in a row I will not be with him, and have not seen him since I left California a year ago September.

In a little over a week I will pick my daughter up from the airport and we will set out within a day or two of her arrival to purchase, set up, and decorate our Christmas tree. My creche–nativity set–has been set up on a shelf unit in my dining room since last Christmas; somehow baby Jesus and company never managed to make it back into the box. Over time it sort of got to be a joke, how my nativity set was still out for Valentine’s Day and then somehow through Easter and the summer. So now I’ll perhaps move them around a little bit, get out the various angel figurines that usually hang out around the creche and that part of the decorating will be finished.

I am grateful for many wonderful memories of Christmas past and am looking forward to preparing for Christmas present, and who knows what the future holds for Christmases yet to come. I am grateful to be part of a family who still wants to get together, where the next generation of nieces and nephews look forward to gathering with their cousins and aunties and uncle nearly as much as I do. At the end of the day, it simply doesn’t get better than that. And for that, I am exceedingly grateful.

Tonight I am getting a very late start on my blog. It has been a mixed bag kind of day–I did many of my Sunday chores: grocery shopping, laundry, changing my linens, paying my rent. Then I did what I often do on a Sunday: watched TV and vegged for a few hours before heading over to my sister Ruth’s house for Thanksgiving dinner day two. Most of the food was almost as good as it was yesterday, but even more than the food was the fun and silly interactions I enjoyed engaging in or watching throughout the evening. And I find myself grateful for the umpteenth time that I belong to a collection of people I call family.

I was talking recently to a colleague who is an only child. She was telling me about all that she does with and for her parents when they come to visit her here or when she visits them at the warm sunny place they’ve retired to. As I listened to her I found myself trying to imagine being part of a family of three instead of a family of eight. As her parents age she is already thinking about how she will take care of them as they get older, about how she will likely move where they are or bring them to live with her once they can no longer function well on their own. I can’t imagine having grown up with my whole world being my parents and not having at least one sibling as peer and playmate. Tonight at my sister’s house I enjoyed watching the banter between my niece and nephew, the natural give-and-take that happens when you hang out with and speak the special language of siblings. I had it with Ruth and my brother who is just older than me more so than I did with my older siblings, but even with them we have a sense of shared history though we experienced life from the various vantage points that birth order provides.

At the bottom of all this is a sense of belonging to something, part of a group, a family clan, a tribe. What I experienced as I sat at Ruth’s and whenever I find myself at the home of one of my siblings is a sense of place and one of connection to the people around me. Sometimes I am more acutely aware of this than at others, but tonight I felt it deeply as I chatted with my sister and her mother-in-law after the kids had retired to another room. I belong here, these are my people. I have found myself at times envious of friends and colleagues whose parents are still alive. Sometimes I think I would give just about anything to be able to spend a few hours with my mother again, to hear her laugh, to see her smile, to hold her hands, to touch her face. But I find that I can often do all those things by spending time with my siblings in whom I see so many elements of both my parents–in their smiles and facial expressions, in their beautiful hands with long, shapely fingers, in their mannerisms and sense of humor. It’s not quite as good as having them back, but almost.

I am so happy to be connected to my siblings and their children. The next generation of family continues to shape and evolve into a fine group of young people. Our family is safe in their collective hands. We are all part of this web of connection that goes beyond simple genetics.  These are my people. I belong to them and they to me. We are connected. And for that I am most deeply grateful.

On this Thanksgiving Day I am going to offer a variety of simple blessings for which I am deeply grateful. I want to reiterate that the words “simple blessing” are in no way an indication of the degree of importance of these blessings or of the depth of my gratitude for them. Simple blessings are merely how I refer to the very basic, often taken for granted, everyday necessities or blessings that are part of our lives. Case in point is one of today’s “simple” blessings: I am grateful for the love and “I’ve-got-your-back” support of family and friends. For some reason this struck me this morning as I was puttering around my kitchen thinking about the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner as it would be prepared and laid out at the homes of various family members’ homes.

And that reminded me of one of my siblings-in-law who is normally one of the sweetest, most hospitable members of our family. At one point very early after I’d told my family that I was getting a divorce, my ex-husband needed to briefly stop by this family member’s home. We had agreed to meet there so he could pick up our kids for an away weekend. Upon learning that he would be stopping there for a few minutes, this family member said to me, “Tell me what you want, Terry: should I be nice to him or should I treat him like crap?” It still makes me laugh to think about it, particular given this person’s normal personality. I’ve little doubt that if I’d said to them, “Give him the freeze. Treat him like crap, etc.” they would have tried to. While I’m not sure they’d have been successful, I have little doubt that they would have at least tried. I’d had similar sentiments expressed to me by other family members around that time. That was a reminder to me–though I’ve always known it–that my siblings and, by extension their partners and families, have my back, will protect and defend me. Ultimately, I told that particular family member that they could “stand down” and treat my ex-husband nicely as they always had, and that I was working hard for the sake of our children to remain amicable with him. That approach has stood me in good stead and now my ex- and I are good friends and he remains cordial with most members of my family who, with one or two exceptions have all forgiven him.

I remain deeply grateful for my family; they remain my greatest source of strength. It has been their love that has sustained me through some of the most difficult times of my life. And when we’ve experienced some of the most difficult times of our collective lives as a family: the illness and death of our mother 18 years ago and our father three years ago, for the most part we were able to bond together and find shelter and comfort in one another’s strength and love. Like most large families, we have at times experienced periods of detachment and estrangements between people here and there, yet we are blessed to still enjoy the strong connections we share with one another. With such a large brood of siblings, their partners, and offspring, no one need ever feel alone. And that is a beautiful thing.

I am thinking of each member of my family today, sending out love to them as they in various ways go about celebrating this holiday. I have little doubt that were I to walk into the homes and kitchens of any of my siblings I would find some of the same traditional holiday foods that have been part of our collective holiday experiences since we were children. There is for me a comfort in that awareness. The familiarity, the sense of home and a shared history. In a little while I will pull myself together and trek over the Beltway and through the woods (not really) to my sister Ruth’s house to spend my second Thanksgiving with her and her family, including her mother-in-law and brother-in-law. “Ma,” as I have the nerve to also call her is the last “mother” in our family, and I am grateful for her. My Aunt Carol–my mother’s youngest sister–is the last blood relative of our parents’ generation. I am grateful for her as well.

On this day set aside to give thanks may all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May we all know true peace and love and enjoy the fruits thereof. May we walk each day in a spirit of gratitude and generosity. May it be so for all beings!

This seems to be a week of remembrances. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Across much of the country yesterday people stopped at various points throughout the day to think about where they were when they heard about the death of President Kennedy and to reflect on his life and legacy. I for one don’t remember a whole lot about it: I was six years old, sitting in Sister Thomas Marie’s first grade classroom when the announcement came over the loud speaker. I think Sister Thomas Marie dropped something when she heard the news, but I don’t really recall much else. I wasn’t frightened, but it was clear that something was going on and whatever it was was not good. I can’t say that I was deeply affected by the president’s assassination and death. Five years later when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated followed all too quickly thereafter by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, I was much more aware of and more keenly felt the impact of their deaths. Dr. King’s death in particular deeply affected my family and remains a much stronger memory for me.

So while, the world stopped to remember JFK, this evening I am stopping to remember my father, Roland W. Chamblee, Sr. who would have been 91 years old today. I was thinking about how odd it is to say, he would have been 90 today which, while it is true is also a somewhat odd statement. The outlaw Billy the Kid, who was also born on November 23, only in 1859 would have been 154 years old today if he hadn’t died in 1881. Okay so it’s my odd sense of humor kicking–it’s late, my apologies.

I am grateful for my father’s legacy. While he was not nationally prominent like that of JFK and MLK and other towering historical figures, he was certainly prominent in our local community in South Bend, Indiana and surrounding areas, and was most definitely a prominent figure in our family. I have written in this blog about my father a number of times, most recently on Veterans Day and Memorial Day. I also wrote about him on the eve of the third anniversary of his passing on September 23, 2010 (Day 801) I want to take just a few moments to acknowledge him once again and offer simple gratitude for a few of the many small blessings he represented to me.

I am grateful for the some of the physical attributes I inherited from my father: his beautiful, long-fingered hands, some of my mannerisms: the way I rub my hands over my head (his was bald, mine is not, but I find I share that head rubbing mannerism.) Occasionally I will tilt my head a particular way or make a facial expression that I know comes directly from him. And inwardly I smile and shake my head in amazement that even our mannerisms can be passed down through generations, whether by nature or nurture. My father sang a lot and was quite musical, though he didn’t develop formal musical training (he played a trumpet for a while as a young man, but it never “took.”) He had a lovely voice; I used to love to hear him sing pretty much anything. I come by my musical ability honestly–my Dad sang, as did his brother and his mother. So little wonder that his children and several of his grandchildren have good voices and other musical talents. My father was also a writer and speaker, and while I’m not sure I have his gift for oratory (or perhaps it’s more that I don’t put myself out there to give speeches), I do manage to hold my own on those occasions when I am invited to speak.

It is not unusual for us to look at our parents to examine the ways in which we are like them as well as those ways in which we are different. I am grateful to have had two wonderful people to emulate. While they were not perfect (who is?) they were certainly excellent models in so many ways. I miss my father a great deal, and I am of course aware of his absence as birthdays and anniversaries come around. They are painful–though less so each year–but important opportunities to look back and celebrate the life of someone of major significance in my life. For that and for him I am exceedingly grateful.

Portrait of Roland W. Chamblee as a Young Man