After a request from a Writing It Real member to write more on the topic of composing holiday letters, I decided first to write my holiday letter and see what lessons came. I started with the scene of a recent night’s wakefulness and let that scene lead me to associations concerning some of the events of my year. The lesson for me was this: setting a scene in the now of my life, one that might not seem worthy of writing about, led to a contemplation worth sharing.

My 2012 Holiday Letter For Family and Friends

This weekend, I awoke suddenly from sleep at two AM and tried my best to stay still and fall back asleep, to not wake Kurt, but I was very restless. I slipped out of bed and walked carefully through the dark hallway to the living room. ‘Twas the night after shopping all day in box stores and in the dim light that came from our front windows, I saw the Costco million-packs of toilet paper, paper towels and tissues sitting on our couch, the economy size box of space-saving storage bags on the seat of my favorite chair. Jars of Trader Joe’s almond butter and bottles of grade B (Kurt’s favorite) maple syrup took up the kitchen counter; boxes and cellophane bags of more staples nestled in grocery sacks on the floor. When you drive two and a half hours round trip to the stores, you want each excursion to be one you don’t have to repeat very often.

I wanted to yell out to the clutter, “Can you stow yourselves away, stow away all?” Why had we told ourselves we’d have the energy for sorting and storing in the morning? I didn’t need one more thing to do the next day. But cleaning up in our little house would wake Kurt, so I settled with my laptop into my second-choice chair and began to think about things out of place.

I had instigated bathroom remodels this spring and with nowhere to store materials, the contractor had taken over one of our two bedrooms. Having to move furniture to make room for his materials and his tools, he needed me to empty a tall armoire full of linens and towels. For months, the colorful cloth of our lives resided on the living room couch in a pile Kurt called our Turkish bazaar since he’d come with our group of writers to Istanbul in May and the images of that colorful city remained vivid. All of June, July, August and September, our front door was open.  The men tearing down walls and putting them back up, wiring for new spaces, and laying down tile had ventilation and one fewer  thing to handle coming in and going out. Flies flew in widening circles over boxes of toilets, sinks, faucets, lighting fixtures and a bathtub. When Kurt had an emergency abdominal appendectomy and a week later was released from the hospital, we began sleeping in our offices, which are connected by a tiny bathroom not involved in the remodel, Kurt in a reclining chair we’d gotten from Habitat for Humanity to keep him from tossing and turning and disrupting the incision and me on a sofa bed with a memory foam topper. We called to one another, “Good night, Baby, sleep tight,” “Do you need anything?” “Yes, maybe some water.”

During the months of our things and ourselves out of place–bags of items from vanity drawers in a corner by my dresser, maple doors lining the wall behind Kurt’s dresser–, of summer plans not happening when we’d wanted them to — a cancelled trip to visit Kurt’s widowed father and join in a class reunion — I grew restless about restoring order, about exerting control where I could. My closet and drawers are neater now than ever. I weeded through Kurt’s jeans and his shirts, making trips to Goodwill. I sorted through forgotten keys, discarding ones that open none of our doors. Once Kurt healed, we dusted and vacuumed and vacuumed and dusted and dusted and vacuumed, over and over, at five feet tall, my vision directed to the floors and tables, and at six foot three, Kurt’s efforts concentrated on the tops of our cabinets and high shelves, both of us grateful for his recovery.

You can’t tell at night or on the grey days of our rainy season, but our windows sorely need washing and the window coverings need cleaning, too. (Did you know that flies, caught between the shades and the window glass poop little brown dots?)

It is impossible to have remodeling happening in the center of a small house and not have the whole house involved, not only in the event but in its aftermath. Is the desired result worth the turmoil of getting there? Thankfully, we are happy with our new shower, which Kurt has named the Carnegie shower because its acoustics for singing are the best he’s ever experienced in a bathroom. Our new guest bathroom has room for a tub and has an entrance more discreet than the original. But every time I walk to that new entrance, retrace a walkway different than the one my son Seth, who aspired to become an architect, designed for our built-on-a-tight-budget house, I feel what is missing, what will never be the same. I relive his sudden death eight years after he designed the house; I also feel the bittersweet dynamics of our lives going on. Up to now, I could not bring myself to paint a new color on the walls of this home. I needed everything as it was to feel my boy with me.

When my mother came recently to see the finished bathrooms, she said: “Seth would like what you did very much.” Of course, my mother gave me a gift by saying what I had hoped would be true, the influence of my son spreading into the new tributaries that flow from the place we once shared.

I thought of how Seth’s nature reinforced mine–we shared a love of putting in the energy necessary for a desired effect and enjoyed creating order in what surrounded us. I thought about those traits and how they became hallmarks of his way of life and of his work as an architect. I realized again how deep my wish was all these months to have been able to consult with him about the changes to “his” house, even via dreams, if he would come. Then, I remembered a very recent dream in which I walked this same walk from bedroom to living room. Outside the window, a large coyote was sitting comfortably in our deck rocking chair. As I approached the window glass, the animal ran quickly into the garden. I turned from the glass and he came back, taking his comfortable seat on the chair. Sitting in the living room remembering that dream, I wondered if there was a message I could interpret as coming from Seth and remembered how after the house was done, I asked him for help with landscaping choices, but he left those choices all up to me.

The rocking chair was empty, of course, this night as I sat amidst the shopping clutter. But I realized having dreamed him, the coyote will always there for me, reminding me that my strength is in living and that my son is in his fleeting way here as well; with every glimpse of him, among the old and among the new, I am renewed.

I looked again at the disarray of items in my living room. Keeping order or allowing disorder, keeping things the same or changing them, either way offers us a look into our lives. As December approaches and for my family, the 12th anniversary of Seth’s death, I am grateful to live in this house he designed, grateful to have been able to update it, grateful for Kurt’s quick recovery, and grateful for the coyote who draws me from sleep to the stillness where essences mingle.

In the morning, Kurt and I would again dust the laundry room and pantry shelves and then put all the shopping away. For now, I was ready for sleep.

With love,

Sheila