For One Day

Last year I spoke of Christmas as a state of mind, but what about the barriers to have cross to enter the state? You might be stopped at the checkpoint because you’ve got too much baggage. Worried about money, stressed about your living situation, sad over people you have lost; these are just some of things the state requires you to leave behind before you enter.

But it’s not so easy is it? How can you be excited about the joy your gifts may bring to others when you know the cost of that joy? How can you wake up on December 25^th on a bed that is on loan and feel joy? How can you not look at your Christmas tree and see the gift that will remain unopened. You can’t pretend these barriers don’t exist – that had been my original thought to suggest, but no, it can’t be done.

All I can suggest is smile. Yes you might have to scrape by and live on toasties for a while in the new year, but would you really trade it for the look in your families eyes as they see the gifts you bought. When you see what they hold in their hands is not just merchandise but an embodiment of the fact that you love them. It may not be your own bed but a look to your side will show you that all you need for Christmas has been with you all along. As long as you have them it will be okay – they will make it better for you just you will make it better for them. For the ones we’ve lost? Honour them. Honour them with memory and laughter and love. Celebrate them as you celebrate the day.

Christmas, as an adult, should be the one day of the year in which you should exile all negative thought. It may be hard; there could be tears and anger, maybe blood, but fight hard. Fight hard and then rest, and when you awake on the day, for that one day (because you deserve that day!), feel love and nothing more.

Merry Christmas everyone.

We Won't Have a Christmas This Year

We won't have a Christmas this year, you say
For now the children have all gone away;
And the house is so lonely, so quiet and so bare
We couldn't have a Christmas that they didn't share.

We won't have a Christmas this year, you sigh,
For Christmas means things that money must buy.
Misfortunes and illness have robbed us we fear
Of the things that we'd need to make Christmas this year.

We won't have a Christmas this year you weep,
For a loved one is gone, and our grief is too deep;
It will be a long time before our hearts heal,
And the spirit of Christmas again we can feel.

But if you lose Christmas when troubles befall,
You never have really had Christmas at all.
For once you have had it, it cannot depart
When you learn that true Christmas is love in your heart.

- Verna S. Teeuwissen

Christmas Message 2006

Christmas Message 2005

Jimmy

James Ambrose Senior is my father’s father. To my cousins he has always been 'Papa', but even at a young age ‘papa’ felt an odd word to me (equally true of My fathers mothers moniker 'Nana') and so I opted to call him, as others did, by his name; Jimmy.

For as long as I can remember Jimmy and Annie (the would be ‘Nana’) have lived in Rosebank Tower in Cambuslang. Jimmy would dress each day in a shirt in tie and tend to his small but lush garden on the veranda. He enjoyed popping into the bookies for a wee flutter (always on the double initial horses) and he could probably be tempted by a wee pint at the Black Bull just seeing as he’s passing, and sure why not a half of whisky too.

Jimmy won’t be at ‘The Bull’ this week, nor at the bookies. His garden, cultivated for decades, was sadly left behind when he and Annie were moved to home a few weeks ago and, as much as he may wish it, there will be no shirt buttoned and the tie will remain on its hook. Jimmy is dying.

How long has it been since I first heard those words? Months? Years? I’d place my money on the later. “Jimmy is dying” you’d hear and then only days later “Jimmy’s out the hospital, he’s okay”. Jimmy reinvented the emotional rollercoaster in the last few years with a multitude of miraculous comebacks. His remarkable fortitude in the face of Cancer and multiple surgeries even became a source of dark humour – my Aunt once remarked that she was going to stop telling people her father was dying as it was getting embarrassing to receive condolences on one day and congratulations on the next in so many occasions. If only today were one of those days, If only we could share another black laugh, if only, if only, if only.

While writing this post I received a phone call from my mother suggesting I join my father and his sisters at The Princess of Wales Hospice via taxi. That was 16:20. By 16:40 I was stepping into my taxi which, to my eternal regret, was also the time Jimmy drew his last breath. I met my dad on the steps of the hospice 50 minutes later at which time he simply told me “he’s gone, son”. For what seemed like a long time after that we stood together and cried over his father, my grandfather, Jimmy.

Jimmy Ambrose
20/12/1921 – 12/12/07

Mallett's Mallet