This was last year's Christmas Tree!

Now even I have to admit that is a sad sight for a Christmas Tree!  That was last year and this year is shaping up to be a little bit better.  This poor dead tree is laying out by the trash barrel and is well on it's way to becoming compost!  Bret and Amanda have the big tree up over there where the treadmill is so we are good to go.  Course if someone hits the button the tree is going to shoot out through the front window.

Today would have been Kenny's birthday, had he hung around, but we know he did not.  Being a widow pretty much sucks if you want to know the truth of the whole matter.  Divorces are so cathartic!  Mother always told me, when I was ranting and raving  about something one of the idiot husbands had done to bring about the latest divorce, "If you are ever a widow your husband will take on sainthood."  Mothers are always right!  I do not understand that, though, because I am a mother and I am not always right!  I digress.

I have been alone 7 years.  That is a long time.  From Thanksgiving until the end of January, I pretty much stay in a funk.  I had lunch yesterday with a minister friend and he was telling me how lackadaisical he has been the last few weeks.  We talked a bit and then he mentioned his mother had been gone just one year.  I then explained to him how the grief cycle works.  Anniversaries are just that.  We may not even realize, but when we put our finger on it, we know.

So does life go on?  Sure it does.  We mark one month, then one year, then 5 years, and so it goes.  What is our alternative?  There is none.  Do our memories become less acute?  Sure they do.  What was raw emotion fades to a dull ache and that eventually turns into just another day.  Another page on the calendar and just another day to get through.  Sometimes I actually think I am going to be happy again, someday.  For now it will just have to do that the Christmas Tree is up and I think it is pretty.  I will spend more time in church this season and do a little more volunteer work.  I am actually going to Colorado Springs for the volunteer party at SCAP.  Never did that before, but Linda is insisting on it this time.

So as we enter this Holy Season, I want to tell you Merry Christmas way early.  I will miss Kenny this year, but I miss him every day anyway.  I think all the little fellow ever wanted was for me to be happy, so after seven long years I am going to work on that and it is going to start this Christmas.  I have friends and family.  I have people who love me and need me and if I can spread the cheer, that is what it is all about.  And remember,

Jesus is the reason for the season!