The Year Christmas Didn’t Come

The Year Christmas Didn’t Come was a hard one.

All through Bill’s sickness and 3 month hospital stay I envisioned us coming home and having Christmas together. I left the tree up, still decorated and the presents beneath it. Of course, I had no way of knowing it would be April before we came home.

The day we were released from Frazier Rehab and came home friends lined our driveway with cars and John Deere tractors (lots of tractors). Our church friends made signs with Bill’s favorite Bible verses on them and posted them on either side of our road. I loved the signs so much I brought them inside and placed them around the den.

I admit this is a sad looking tree. Not sure what happened but someone had removed the top ornaments and the lights had gone out. Also, If you notice there is a face mask with 2020 written on it by my son. After just one week at home I realized the tree had to come down and all the decorations had to be put back in the attic.

My daughter came over this week and she saw that I was taking ornaments off the tree .”Mom,” she said, “I thought we were going to have Christmas when Dad got home.” I heard the disappointment in her voice but for me, the year 2020 was the year Christmas didn’t come.

Christmas 1990

My mother died in July of 1990 and all I remember about Christmas that year is wanting it to be over. I put on a “Happy face” and acted my role, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was so relieved when it was finally over because every thing I did that Christmas brought back memories of her. I hid my tears but I cried with every present I wrapped because she wouldn’t be there to watch her grandchildren open their gifts.

Christmas 2020

I am so thankful that we were able to bring Bill home and every day I see him getting stronger. A thousand times a day I whisper “Thank you, Jesus.” But the truth is Christmas 2020 was awful. Bill was in the hospital with COVID and I couldn’t be with him. Then on the 26th, the twins birthday, his lung collapsed and he was placed on a ventilator. I didn’t seem him until mid January and we would have countless setbacks and be in two more hospitals before we came home in April.

When I walked in and saw the tree, the presents…..the memories just smacked me upside the head like a two by four. Instead of feeling joy that he was home– the sight made me remember the nights I sat alone looking at the tree, praying and crying. I just want Christmas 2020 to be over. I’m not even sure I’ll want to celebrate this December.

Moving Forward

A good friend of mine suggested that I may have some degree of post traumatic stress disorder. She’s probably right. The fact that Bill can’t remember the majority of what happened to him is a blessing. But I do remember. I remember every scary moment and then some and I’m still not over it.

I imagine that the fact that Bill almost died will be similar to when I lost my mother. I won’t get over it– but I will learn to live with it.

Come December maybe I’ll feel better about decking the halls and all that goes with it but for now I just want to enjoy being home where there are no beeping of hospital machines, code blues, needles, crying people in elevators, and helicopters unloading sick patients.

The people who are running in and out of our bedroom are our grandchildren and not doctors and nurses. I can sleep in my own bed and not a plastic fold out recliner that wakes you up with in the middle of the night when it tries to snap you up like a Venus Fly Trap. (I did get upgraded by my good friend Gary to a pull out bed that was better but about 5 inches too short for my long legs).

I have a feeling that Thanksgiving will be my big holiday from now on. I’ve always liked it better anyway and after the year we have had….I know exactly how much I have to be thankful for.

Thank you Jesus. Thank you friends for praying Bill home.