For me, this time of year is very soothing. Even though I grew up in the desert of west Texas, I quickly acclimated to the Midwest and I really don’t mind the winters no matter how bitterly cold and snowy they are. I have even come to enjoy shoveling snow in the evenings when it’s so quiet the only thing you can hear for miles around is the sound of your snow shovel scraping the pavement.
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The first thing I learned when I moved here almost 17 years ago was the importance of layers – flannel, fleece, wool, and a good hat and gloves will get you through all kinds of weather. I also learned that I have strong nesting instincts that seem most apparent in the winter. This is the time of year when I love spending time in the kitchen cooking pots of all sorts of veggie soups and baking cookies partly as an excuse to have the oven on. I spend a lot of time at home alone with my animals at this time of year and I really love that. My dogs and cats love to sit on the rug in the kitchen watching me cook.
I have never associated the holidays with the death of a relative. I started thinking about this a few weeks ago when the subject came up of Thanksgiving or Christmas forever being difficult for people who have lost a loved one near one of those holidays. None of the close relatives I’ve lost in my life have died on or around the holidays. My mom, dad, a brother, a sister, and grandparents all died in the spring or summer – so, I’ve never even been to a winter funeral.
For me, winter is a time of quiet meditation and being alone with my thoughts. People talk about experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder and it usually means that the shorter days and less sun in the winter makes them feel depressed and out of sorts. For some reason, the shorter, darker days, bare trees, and snow covered ground make me feel more alive than at other times of the year. Winter always has a way of making me feel thankful and at peace.
Of all the people I’ve lost, I would have to say that the person I mourn and miss the most at this particular time of year is my sister. She really loved Christmas and she was the best all-occasion gift giver I’ve ever known. She just had this weird knack for being able to find the most perfect thing for everyone. Her gifts were never expensive but they were always really thoughtful and sweet and were usually exactly what you always wanted but would never have bought for yourself. One year, for some incomprehensible reason, my boss at the time gave me a weird brown knit hat for Christmas. When I showed it to my sister, she could not stop laughing. I had no intention of ever wearing that ridiculous hat so I ended up tossing it in a closet and planned never to think about it again. Somehow or other, my sister found it and hid it away and the following year she wrapped it up in beautiful paper and ribbons and added it to the gifts she gave me for Christmas. She could barely wait for me to open it and when I did the two of us laughed so hard we almost cried. From that point on, we gave it to each other back and forth for birthdays and Christmas for the next 4 or 5 years. We finally stopped re-gifting that hat one year when I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that weird and decided to keep it and wear it. I still have the hat and whenever I wear it I think of my sister.
She and I were never that close growing up. She was closer in age to my two other older sisters. But, after I finished grad school, she was the one who came out here with me to help me find a place to live when I first moved here. I had 3 dogs at the time and I didn’t want to live in an apartment. She and I drove through every residential neighborhood in this college town looking for a rental house with a fenced in back yard. As we wandered all over, she kept pointing out interesting spots: restaurants, shops, and other places she thought I should check out once I was settled in. At one point, we stopped at a light and I noticed tears streaming down her face. It scared me a little and I asked her why she was crying. She answered, “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about how much I’m going to miss you after you move here.”
At the time, 600 miles seemed like it was going to be such a long distance between us.
Ten years after that, I was the one left behind to miss her. Nine years ago, she was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer and, after 2 rounds of chemotherapy, she died 4 years later.
So, winter and the upcoming holidays don’t make me melancholy even if my brain is sometimes flooded with memories of past holidays with loved ones who are no longer here. However, I have always wondered why summer always makes me feel restless and claustrophobic. In the warm summer months I prefer to be around other people and I rarely turn down invitations to go out and do something. That’s the time of year I’m most likely to see my friends on a weekly basis, going out for dinner or drinks. I even have many of my meals at home outside on the patio table on my deck. I also seem to have a hard time sitting still during the summer – I spend a lot of time either frenetically working in the garden or on some other needed DIY project around the house. I always thought it was because I love the feeling of the sun on my skin and the sense of accomplishment when my lawn is mowed and the plants look good. But now I wonder if the constant activity is a subconscious attempt to keep from ruminating about my losses from past springs and summers.
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