I think there is an overwhelming sense of great expectation with each and every holiday. It's like waking up in the morning and knowing that yesterday has ceased to exist but today the sun is shining, life is new and finally one can seize the day, again. I can feel this especially around the holidays specifically within the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year time frame. I, like many of us come from what can only be conceived as a traditional family now, and shifted between my mom and my dad. So, for me, the exhilaration resides in the turkey, stuffing and the candied yams with the pineapple bits and marshmallows. Plentiful in two different households-we make out like bandits in the food and gift department don't we?
This holiday was a bit different for me and hence the question when does school start?? Because I am ready! And it's not because of the recession nor because I wound up at an Indian restaurant on Thanksgiving. My grandfather passed away on December 27th. It's not to say he wasn't ready, he was 96 years old. He wanted to go. What was interesting is that he waited until he said goodbye to all of us. We are strewn about the west coast and for a moment we were together and it was in that moment he chose to go.
My grandfather and I have an interesting bond. When I was adopted from India, I technically didn't have a real birthday, so I was given my grandfather's birthday. It was my grandfather who taught me how to play the various types of poker when I was a 9-year-old. I won $9.48-he claimed it was beginner's luck. In middle school he explained that life has it's ups and downs, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose...but the game is sticking to it, not to the outcome. He proved that statement when he received his GED-he was 80. One of the last times I saw him, he was oddly lucid. A nurse wheeled him from the dining room to me. As she wheeled him out she asked him if he knew who I was. He was suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia-understandable at 96. And he replied "You betcha. I know exactly who she is." The nurse asked him who I looked like to which he stated, matter-of-factly, "Me, of course." A comedian to the very end, he knew very well that he doesn't look anything like me. But, he held my hand and told me he was very lucky to have me for a granddaughter. He was a man rich in friends, family, love and life.
It's been a rough holiday. It's is nothing new to the ages of holidays I am sure. It's documented in songs, hollywood and even some of your own lives. It all comes down to expectations, however. I went into this holiday expecting it to be amazing and to an extent it was. I had the most perfect moment with my grandfather. Surprisingly the feeling of great expectation didn't die with this holiday. It has shifted from this abstract idea leading up to a magical day when Santa has come or the baby beating out the old man for the arrival of the new year, somehow the magic has reappeared again as a moment in the morning when I realize today...I have today...yes, a new day!
On that note...I am motivated and ready to go! When does school start???
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