Neuer Gedankengang!

Christmas this year

I have a Christmas tree up - a few modest decorations on the mantel (or is it mantle?). My neighbor Frances came over to help, and she put the lights on the tree, which I very much appreciate. That was always David's task. He put on the lights, and I put on the decorations. This is the first "real" tree in this apartment. I lived here last year, but only put up a small paper tree with paper decorations. Nice, and enough because I was traveling on the holiday itself, but not the way of Christmases past. This year it was important to me that I reconnect with the past traditions, even though I am alone here in this apartment.

I have chosen to stay in Little Rock for the holiday. One reason is that I have a new church family this year, and I want to share Christmas with them. Behind all the lights of the season, for me, is the spiritual reality of the Light of God coming into the world, and I want to share that with my spiritual family.

The other reason I decided to stay in my home and practice Christmas traditions is to affirm, as my pastor said this morning, that as long as I'm breathing, God has a purpose for me. It's a purpose, I believe, that is built on all that I have experienced and all that I shared with David. It is important, and it is a way of honoring David, that I live out that purpose in my home and my community. What was important and special about the holidays didn't die or go out of my life when David died.

A few months after David died, I spoke on campus at UALR with a wonderful woman who was one of my favorite professors and who had lost her husband a few years before. Her words have stayed with me; one way that we honor those who have left us is that "We keep on being the person they loved." I see the choices I have made for this holiday season as a way of doing that.

Blessings to all of you.

posted by Shirley Schuette @ 11:31 PM