Tis the Season

This Christmas was a first for me. It is the first that my oldest (our youngest) daughter was not home for Christmas morning. Usually, since she was about three years old, she would come bounding into my bedroom and jump on the bed at about 6 AM and scream with anticipation and joy "Wake-y Wake-y! Santa's been here and it's time to open presents." Which wasn't so bad until she was about 14 and by that time she had gotten taller and bonier and she elbow to the ribs and the knee to the kidney started hurting my aging body.

As I said in an earlier post she got married last April and she and her husband moved to Missouri after his Air Force basic training and Tech school. As a father, I have tried to be sensitive to our children's needs and desires but I have also had to be firm and not show emotion at times. I did rather well at not showing emotion when they left to go to Missouri. My wife, on the other hand was a big blubber-headed baby. (I had had my tears shed when she left home in anger a year before, after graduating high school and had determined that I had shed enough tears over my children--I know ladies, but I AM a man!)

Well, THIS Christmas, I would not show emotion and I would NOT shed a tear. Little did I know how the human body works.

I am used to my son, who disowned me and moved in with his mother after I got engaged to my wife. I see him on about two occasions a year if I am lucky. I talk to him even less, as when I call he always is in the middle of something and says he will call me back and never does. With him, I determined a couple of years ago to stop worrying about begging him to see me. I decided that if he WANTS to see me, he will. If he does not want to see me, no amount of calling and begging him will work. All I can do is pray that one day he will realize that I love him and want to make peace with me.

I tried approaching my daughter moving away the same way. Problem is, the situations are not the same. On the one hand, my son does not want to have anything to do with me, whatever his reasoning is. My daughter, on the other hand calls me or my wife every other day at least. Sometimes three or four times a day. On still the other hand, (Yes, I do have three hands) She and I have always been close and I really miss the one child I have that is over the"Dad is a dunderhead" phase.

Still, my manly pride will not let me cry without good provocation. It is a man thing--deal with it! I had not cried at all leading right up to Christmas Eve, when we hosted my wife's family get together. We had 21 of the Davis clan in our 1875 square foot home, most of them confined to the living and kitchen/dining rooms. (I am glad that fire marshals do not work Christmas Eve as there were a few times that the exits were clearly blocked by humankind.)

As is tradition, we waited for one set of the daughter's family to arrive. Only this year, it was not the usual suspects. No, they were the first family to arrive. When I mentioned this to my brother-in-law, he stated that "usually my timing is better than that."

After everyone arrived, we fed our faces and then opened presents. When it came to my daughter's turn, we called her and told her that it was her turn to open presents. We reasoned that just because she was away from us, did not mean that she had to be left out. After the presents, then the real meaning for our gathering began--football bowl games and why the Vols don't deserve the bowl they got and why the Bulldogs got shafted again.

While my two brothers-in-law and their sons and my oldest son all stood in one corner of the living room and discussed the merits of a college football playoff and why the SEC does not get any respect, my wife and all the other women folk sat around the room and talked as if they were talking to a deaf relative because the men were so vocal in their discussions. As the women spoke louder, the men did also. Before long, the room was a cacophony of vocal discombobulation (this means it was a loud, confusing and head ache inducing noise).

I snuck off and text messaged my daughter. "I nd a drk!" and after everyone left, we sat down to play Phase 10 with the kids that were home and I did have a drink or three. We drank and played cards until my wife was giggling uncontrollably and I won the game. (I think instead of our tradition of going to the movies on Christmas day, I would vote to make this our new tradition) It was an agreeable evening.

Fast forward to six AM Christmas Day. I am awakened over the sound of my CPAP machine by my wife, sniffling. I took of the machine and turned to her. "What's wrong, Honey?"
"I miss my Allie. It is not the same without her here and I want all my chicks home."

I suddenly felt for the first time, just how much she was right. Our children did belong at home on Christmas, and even though at least half were here, it still was not the same without our youngest daughter and her husband here too.

I spent years trying to get my children grown and on their own. I just knew after adolescence, that I would be ready for a break from them and ready to share some quiet time alone with my wife and our friends. What I did not realize was that I can have that time anytime. I see them every day. We now have no children at home and all live at least an hour and a half away (except for the one that has disowned us), so we see very little of them. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Damn it! This just is not fair. I was not supposed to feel this way and now that I do, it bothers me to see them leave to go their own seperate ways.