A Painful Christmas Past ......

It’s not unusual for parents to be blamed for that which defines and shapes their children’s lives for good or for bad.   Mothers were once at the forefront of this trend but now fathers are beginning to be seen as equally culpable.  My brother became strangely apprehensive each year as Christmas drew closer and as he grew old  he told me that he placed that feeling of foreboding squarely at the feet of our father who had so inconveniently chosen to die on December twelfth all those years ago.  Clearly our mother was unlikely to have recovered sufficiently from the shock of the event to make that or as far as he was concerned, any future Yuletides joyous occasions but common sense dictated that she couldn’t really be held responsible.

I only half agreed with him and in any case once I had children of my own I pulled all the stops out to make each Christmas, antipodean though they were, the happiest and most momentous possible.  It was at times exhausting, particularly during unrelentingly hot and humid summer days and nights but I worked at it with dogged determination in order that each should grow up with a store of happy memories.  And although I complained every year of all the work involved, of course I loved doing it!  

For all these reasons and many more besides I wanted to make Christmas 2019 the best one ever because Himself was totally aware it would be his last; he kept saying so.   I didn’t quite believe it because at that time I was still foolishly hopeful that something, somehow would emerge from the shadows to save him.  But naturally enough, as is invariably the case with terminal illness, that did not happen which I might have realized if I had only stopped to think the situation through and analyse the slim possibility of a last-minute cure.   I’ve never been good at noticing the obvious and my mother often commented observing that there’s none so blind as them that won’t see and looking meaningfully in my direction.  At the time of course I had no idea what she was talking about and in any case I was not the only recipient of this philosophical statement and at one time she said it several times daily.

To get back to around this time last year, it all started well enough.  We three Aucklanders were excited that Sinead was coming to spend the holiday with us because her love for her father has always spilled over joyously and affected each one of us.   We were delighted, excited and I even began to plan menus and wished I had prepared better and that there was time to make a Christmas Pudding that hid tokens, among them, somehow or other by some sorcery a silver threepenny piece.  Time was short though and instead, Sinead brought one with her from Fortnum & Mason.  It didn’t harbour the required coinage but when lit up with brandy did very well indeed for tradition.

The stage was set for a perfect celebration and even when it was suggested that we might in fact have to make room for a last minute totally unexpected guest our enthusiasm could not be wholly dampened.  To my mind it was a scenario most unlikely to eventuate and I based that conclusion on the fact that I had for over a year been attempting to elicit concern and interest in what Himself was going through from the errant family member in question without any success whatsoever, not even as much as a late night text.  Like it or not there lurk among our progeny the occasional one distinctly disinterested in any degree of loving care towards a parent suffering distress.  In the final analysis my thoughts mattered little as befits the position of a mother because Himself has always had a forgiving nature and was overjoyed to welcome he who had seemed lost to him.  My own mother would have nodded approvingly and noted that he was tickled pink and it would do him no end of good!

    I pushed aside the reservations I had nursed as to what might might in effect turn out to be a bad fairy at a christening and it was only later I fervently wished I could have been stronger.  This was because although it appeared that many of our previous parental misdemeanours had been abandoned now on his very Last Christmas, the one that was supposed to be perfect, it was quite unexpectedly revealed that Himself had in fact been a very poor father indeed.   One child had been forced to grow up in an environment of domestic violence and ongoing visits from law enforcement agencies.   That would have been bad enough but not content with that this heartless and neglectful father had exacted upon the unfortunate lad a particularly ritualistic form of sadistic physical punishment.

 There did not seem to be very much that could be said regarding such unanticipated accusations at the time but over the intervening months a lot of reflection and rumination has taken place during those hours when sleep is elusive.   And as Christmas 2020 draws inexorably closer I find that I am all too often lingering a year behind, thoughts whirling about those painful whimsical notions.   If only such fanciful ideas could have been avoided upon the occasion of that important Last Christmas.   They were made even more poignant by the fact that following his death some weeks ago the only photograph to be found in his wallet was that of his accuser, aged five or six half smiling and staring pensively at the camera.