Holiday Greetings, But Not Holiday Cards

So already, 'tis the season--at least it has been over the years in my life--for mailing Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year's cards near and far. But this year, for the most part, I'll be depending on email and Facebook to extend my holiday greetings. 

 

I'm not 100% comfortable with my decision. 

 

In part, it's about money. In the last couple of months, a broken living room window and a broken tooth have unexpectedly broken the bank. Well, I'm exaggerating--couldn't resist the third "broken." But, in truth, once I was done paying for first two brokens, it made the most sense to send the dollars I had left to organizations that aid people needing food, clothing, and housing during these inflationary times, and not to spend them on holiday cards and postage stamps.

 

And in part, my decision is about time. With the arrival of our first nearly post-pandemic holiday season, so many people, understandably, are determined to revive the holiday traditions that pandemic protocols had forbidden. For me, that's meant more face-to-face singing and visiting with people, both of which need to be coordinated around visits to my mother on the skilled nursing floor (SNF) of her senior living facility. 

 

At the same time, I haven't wanted to give up those pursuits that kept me balanced and afloat during the last two years. And often, I just need to do nothing at the end of a day that's been plenty long enough. So when I tried to envision adding card-writing to my December plate, I felt dispirited and overwhelmed.

The thing is, when I have time and the right kind of head space, I love writing Christmas cards. When there's time to respond to some piece of news that's arrived in a Christmas card just received or to otherwise personalize* my message to an old or new friend, I feel like I'm affirming or reaffirming a relationship that matters to both me and that friend. The idea of not doing that bothers me.

I also love getting holiday cards and being on the receiving end of the good feeling that they always engender. The greeting card I picked up the other day at my local CVS--see the adjacent photograph--reminded me of that feeling. I love December in part because chances are good that when I go to my mailbox, I'll find one or more pieces of mail that are personal, lovely or fun to look at, and cheering. The holiday season makes me want to go to my mailbox.

I have so many memories of returning home after a school day that felt like two, opening my mailbox in my apartment building's foyer--two different foyers since I was thirty-two--and grinning as I recognized the greeting cards among the bills and fundraising requests. The shape of their envelopes alerted me to the possibility of their being personal mail; handwritten addresses and familiar return addresses I identified as belonging to homes, not businesses and organizations, also clued me in.

 

Whatever else needed to get done that afternoon, I found the time to sit on my sofa and pore over the cards, letters, and photos those envelopes variously contained, and to think about the friends and relatives who'd sent them. 

So how can I not send cards when I know how wonderful it is receive cards? I remind myself that this is a decision for this year, not forever.

There is another reason for my decision. Holiday greetings, when they do more than convey good wishes and good cheer, tend to report what people have been doing, what's been filling their hours or what's stood out as the year's highlights. I enjoy reading about these. What's generally rarer, though, are the holiday cards that share what's been going on in their writers' brains and hearts, especially those thoughts and feelings that have been much in control of the year's narrative.

2022 was basically a good year for me--not entirely without its dark days, but with many bright spots. But were I to list its highlights, they wouldn't tell you what's mattered most to me this year, namely my regular visits to my mother, who's in the late stages of Alzheimer's, and her fellow residents on the part of the SNF at her senior living facility that's particular designated for those with advanced cognitive and memory impairments. During this past year, I've spent so much time wondering what it's like to be her and them.

I began wondering this seriously around Thanksgiving 2021 when one of the activity leaders helped all the SNF residents to create a large tree wall-hanging. Attached to the tree's branches were leaves, one per resident, stating what each was particularly grateful for.

There were some common responses, such as gratitude for family and gratitude for being cared for kindly and well in such a nice place. But what surprised me were the number of explicit expressions of gratitude for being alive. All SNF residents face one or more serious challenges and limitations that require them to receive considerable care and support; hence their presence on the floor. And despite these challenges and limitations, they treasure life, and their own lives in particular. My able-bodied, able-minded self was humbled by this.

 

So much of daily SNF life is communal, and that fact has made my regular presence there both lovely and sad. There's always someone new to the floor whom I remember from her more active, self-sufficient days in the independent living and assisted living parts of the community. And there's always someone dying, most recently the very quiet woman who for several months sat across the table from my mother at mealtime, and whom I remembered as a very dedicated, energetic congregant at Temple Ohabei Shalom twenty-five years ago.

And then there are those wonderful shared activities that engage everyone in happy ways that I think are meaningful to the residents, though I'm not exactly sure how. For example, last Thursday, while a group of us sat around a long table on my mother's part of the floor waiting for some cookies to finish baking, we listened to one of the the activity coordinators read a story about a young woman who feared the worst--unnecessarily--because her boss had asked to speak to her. As the activity coordinator served the just-cooled cookies, she asked the residents what their first jobs had been and what memories they had of their bosses. Everyone spoke, although perhaps not always truthfully: a few of the other family members present were surprised by what they heard. 

 

One thing I've noticed during such activities is that the residents generally don't interact with one another yet seem to be much aware that the others are present. So, for example, when I ask my mother, who sleeps a lot and tends to speak little, whether she wants to take a walk or to stay with the group, she usually wants to stay with the group. I don't know what it means to her to be part of it, but it is what she chooses. I've also noticed that whoever is in charge always speaks to her as if any minute she might decide to say more. I think she's glad to be alive, though I don't think she could think and say that in any coherent way. I do know that when I ask her if she's having a good day, her "yes" answers are always very emphatic.

 

I often think of my mother and her cohort as flowers that thrive in the shade.** That said, for someone such as myself who's frequently taught The Odyssey  and James Joyce's "The Dead,"*** the word "shade" invariably conjures thoughts of the dead. Homer refers to the dead whom Odysseus encounters when he visits the underworld to consult with the prophet Teiresias as shades. And speculating that his aunt's death will occur in the not-so-distant future, Gabriel muses to himself, " Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade . . .. He had caught the haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal" (224).

If I've been thinking about mortality a lot this year, I suspect it's because of my age and my mother's situation. When I learned from her obituary that the woman whom I recognized from Temple Ohabei Shalom had no children, I, also childless, wondered how she'd come to be on the SNF, who'd visited her, who'd looked out for her, who'd helped her make difficult decisions when she'd needed help, and even made them for her when she no longer could. I've been wondering who will be there to look out for me and Scott, should we both live to old age, once we're not there to look out for each other. Scott, in contrast to me, and in part because his own ninety-seven-year-old father still manages to live quite independently, isn't worried about this.

Please don't worry that I'm dwelling on this too much. If anything, my consciousness of it has been leading me to make better use of the life and time that I have and that I am healthy and independent enough to be able to enjoy. It's certainly contributed to my decision not to write my usual two hundred holiday cards this year and to walk in the salt marsh instead.

 

It's also made me feel privileged to be part of the world of my mother and her co-residents. The SNF staff recognizes and treats them as individual people rather than as incarnations of old age and dementia waiting at death's door. Regardless of the amount of care they need and others' beliefs about the quality and meaning of their days, the living are the living until they cease to breathe and become the dead, period. 

 

Somehow, I just couldn't imagine writing those last sentences in a Christmas card, but they're very important to me. Still, I've wanted to be in touch with the many people who matter so much to me; hence this blog, among other things.

Next year, I hope that many of you will go to your mailboxes on some distinctly seasonal December day and discover a holiday card from me. As for now, though, I close by sending you warm wishes for happy holidays, whichever one(s) you celebrate, and for a bright, fulfilling new year.  Love and joy come to you.

 

* Yes, I split the infinitive.

** Screen shot of photo on Wikipedia Shade Garden entry: on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_garden

*** Joyce, J. (1993). "The Dead". In Dubliners. New York, NY: Penguin Books.