On This, My 24th Christmas

It's been an odd day. I'm not angry about it, like I've been in the past. Some what...sublime. That's probably and honestly the best word. This day wore me out. Overstuffed with food, decaffeinated, lethargic. How else could a holiday be? How else should a holiday be? I can't blame the mothers of my families for attempting a tradition. These families are falling apart. I can't blame my mother for trying to glue together something that can't be welded. Still, it just seems so hollow. Trying to remember the past, trying to remind me of my past. My heritage, the oldest son of a farm girl. There's small town in my blood. There's barely and diner and dying economic strategy in my blood.

She asked my father to drive through Manning. The nearest small town to her childhood farm. He obliged, it's her day. She asked me what I remember from Christmas. I muttered some pleasant memories of cousins. I asked her. What else could I do? A closed business here. An abandoned barn there. The grain bin with a whole ripped in it. Unrepairable, unused. Empty. I wonder if this hurts her.

I've driven this road hundreds of times with them. From ideal to resentment, I went in my moods and I chit-chat with my uncles. I drink a beer and fall asleep. My recent defense strategy. Pass the time in slumber. I try to present myself as best I can to the family matriarch. She forgot me. I hope she has some memory, any memory. Baking cookies while my father got open heart surgery, discussing the marriage of priests. Remembering the grandfather I never met. Something has to be in there.

It coincides with my own schedule, this erasing. Our last fluid, lucid conversation was in 2003. The summer before college. Every so often she would ask me where I was going. A mild nuisance, but she retained the information for considerable stretches. I bid her goodbye that day. Metaphysically and physically.

It only got worse. What grade was I in? Who's child was I? Where was I from? Details lost and lost and lost. My resentment for this blood cemented a year ago to the day. I tried to start a conversation, to make the best of the situation. I asked how she was doing.

She asked who I was.

Now she is this landscape. She is that grain bin. Alzheimer's left in irreparable hole that her intellect, cooking ability, and love leaked out of. Even if she could be patched up, where would she get herself from? Her true, intangible essence. Lost in a few short years. From what's your major, again? to who are you?

Now, I wait. Her death as inevitable as my own. I bury her memory in snide comments and sarcastic witticisms. I'm not ashamed of her, I'm ashamed of me. Of my pain I mine and process into bitter self-loathing and resentment for my blood. There will not be another Christmas, just a funereal. Attended by the daughters still loyal, the grandchildren who have no family of their own. The sons flung over the country may never know.

I'm sorry, Laura. Grammy, it had to be this. You had to be this. You brought nine people who brought twenty-seven people to this world. You were the brains behind the family and now you don't have death's dignity and awe. Just a death you keep dying and a life not worth living. I'm sorry I can only remember this you, not my care taker. Not who you were. Just that you are. I'm sorry I can't overcome my fear of time to spend ten minutes with you. I'm sorry this nursing home is a best case scenario. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.