You and Mom did Christmas well. When we were kids and we'd finally get to come downstairs on Christmas morning (you made us stay upstairs until 6am, so you could drink your coffee in peace), there would be a room full of wrapped presents. One time, there were matching silver scooters leaning up against the fireplace which we immediately took outside. You thought they were pretty cool.
Going to sleep the night before Christmas as a kid is impossible. That feeling of anticipation -- when else is that really matched in life? That unadulterated, jittery, excited, pure exuberance at the idea of the future. If I could catch that feeling in a jar. And Megan and I would wake up bursting out of our beds and running downstairs, and you would detain us on the other side of the doorway, really enforce the rule that we couldn't come down until 6am.
Of course, Christmas is different as an adult, it loses the magic, and Christmas now will always remind me of your sickness and your death, so Christmas as a holiday is dead. The idea of it makes me want to vomit.
Tonight I have what I can only describe as the exact opposite of the excited anticipation a kid feels the night before Christmas. I have this intense and visceral dread, a rising panic as the day draws to a close and I know I will go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and it will be your 72nd birthday, but you won't be here to turn 72. And I don't want to love people anymore, if this is how it turns out, you know? Because this is too awful, and I don't want to do it again.
I loved you so much, Dad, you have no idea how much I miss you.
a
Going to sleep the night before Christmas as a kid is impossible. That feeling of anticipation -- when else is that really matched in life? That unadulterated, jittery, excited, pure exuberance at the idea of the future. If I could catch that feeling in a jar. And Megan and I would wake up bursting out of our beds and running downstairs, and you would detain us on the other side of the doorway, really enforce the rule that we couldn't come down until 6am.
Of course, Christmas is different as an adult, it loses the magic, and Christmas now will always remind me of your sickness and your death, so Christmas as a holiday is dead. The idea of it makes me want to vomit.
Tonight I have what I can only describe as the exact opposite of the excited anticipation a kid feels the night before Christmas. I have this intense and visceral dread, a rising panic as the day draws to a close and I know I will go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and it will be your 72nd birthday, but you won't be here to turn 72. And I don't want to love people anymore, if this is how it turns out, you know? Because this is too awful, and I don't want to do it again.
I loved you so much, Dad, you have no idea how much I miss you.
a
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