December 31, 2009
Four Weddings and Two Funerals
I went to four weddings and two funerals in 2009 and could have gone to a lot more. Funerals, that is. My
Mother passed away in 2009 and I have several friends who also lost a parent and I have several other
acquaintances who passed away. I bought two suits while getting fitted for a tuxedo for the first wedding and
ended up wearing those suits to one funeral and one wedding. Two of the weddings required a tuxedo which
made it easier. I hate it that I wore the same suit to a funeral and then to a wedding and will probably wear it
again at some point to a job interview, more funerals and more weddings.
What if tuxedos were also worn to funerals? Imagine if tuxes, top hats and Thalia and Melpomene masks
adorned us as we knelt and wept into life’s absurd lapel. God help us. Funerals are not surreal or sublime
and are rarely comforting. They are inadequate and insufferable. They are not life’s last gasp; they are mortality’
s horrible knell.
We move on to 2010 and look back at the weddings, happiness and promise while also reaching back for
those who, physically, won’t leave 2009. They are the sastrugi of memory, jutting up from winter’s blanket. Yet
they are not cold and they are not doomed. They are implanted in the part of us that is forever chapfallen, yet
also forever grateful. What are they? The clock keeps ticking, time stumbles and trips forward and we know
what has left us must come back to us because eventually we are all reunited with the eternal. We can’t go
back, we can’t stop time, but we can reach a peace with time’s relentlessness. We can laugh at it. We can try.
--TK
December 25, 2009
Christmas
What is Christmas? What does it mean? Was a baby born in Bethlehem who was destined
to be the saviour of the human race? Are the ones who believe in Jesus the ones who get it and
those who don’t are adrift in darkness? Or is it all just foolishness? Is the birth of Jesus some
2,009 years ago just a legend and no more real than, say…Santa Claus?
Santa Claus is real. Don’t believe so? Open your eyes, turn on the radio, TV, Internet or
close your eyes and fall into your own imagination. Santa Claus is real. He doesn’t actually
dwell at the North Pole and navigate the earth once per year distributing toys to children but he
is unhesitatingly real. He’s as true and verifiable as…any other myth.
What is Christmas? The story of Christmas, just ask Linus, is the story of a baby born in a
manger to humble parents. The story of Christmas is the story of a woman, Mary, who loved her
son and was just as happy to give birth in a manger as a palace. Christmas is the birth of a
child and the delight of a mother. Christmas teaches us that what makes people happy is to see
children joyous. If Jesus is the son of God or God himself or isn’t, if Santa Claus bestows gifts to
children or doesn’t what we know, should remember, is that Christmas is a celebration of
mothers. God smiles on all those who have a good mother, may God help all those who don’t.
A night, a star, a mother, a child, a family. Christmas is real. Christmas is, as the quote
says, the day that “holds all time together.” Just as a mother holds a family together. And what
is a mother? Mothers are anyone who make you feel good to be alive. And Christmas is any
day when you feel the joy of life and are unafraid of the passage of time. Merry Christmas. --TK