Merry Christmas from Dixie Post # 40

 Last week I went to the best Christmas party ever!  There were two hosts.   One is a friend that I met on the street during an art festival when he and his beautiful lady were sitting in lawn chairs with a small table set up, sharing glasses of wine, gourmet cheeses and snacks.  It warranted a picture and, forever being the tourist, I asked if I could take a photo.  This led to a conversation that sparked a friendship and has opened the doors for fun opportunities for all of us – often inviting each other to cool events.  His lady friend – Lynn had paintings in the art show and they were going straight from there to the opera where he, John, would be one of the lead singers.  They are also ballroom dancers.  

Schoolhouse saved & moved to the estate

          The other host owns the property where the party was held as well as a chain of markets here.  The homestead is in the country on Mobile Bay where he & his wife and their grown children live in various houses connected by trails and long wooded driveways.  There are ponds, bridges, a water mill and lighted trails in the woods that lead to the bay.  But what was most impressive was the host’s desire to, not only preserve history, but to bring it to his family and then to share it with other people - like me.  

Church saved & moved to estate

There is a quaint old school house from Toumanville on deck to be torn down and he negotiated a deal to buy it, then moved it to his property to be restored.  He did the same with a beautiful chapel and a small general store that both narrowly escaped being destroyed and were also moved there and restored.

            We arrived at 4:40 in the afternoon, parking near an outdoor theater where a Blue Grass band was singing “Merry Christmas from Dixie”.   As I looked around at the water mill  next to the wood bridge that crossed a creek to the main house, the song seemed so perfect.  There were food and wine stations outside and in the school house was a room full of decadent appetizers, desserts, and yet, another wine and soft drink station.  The party-goers were free to roam the property to check out the historical structures and walk the trails.  Various musicians performed at the outside theater and the chapel with one group playing violins, cello, harp, and other beautiful instruments.  The weather was warm, though it cooled after dark just enough to need a sweater.  It was picture-perfect!   I love the country, especially in a woods-like setting; and the way the host blended local history into his family life just felt like this is the way life should be.

 But for some reason, this season – this year – has been particularly hard.  I find myself tearing up over  Christmas songs while shopping.  Though it’s been four years since Mom died and eight since losing my step-mom and step-dad, at the most unexpected times, the tears start rolling and that once familiar lump that lived in my throat from 2004-2009 returns without warning.  My life seems to be in review and things from that period rear their heads unprovoked. I find myself living in regret; regret for not being able to save Mom; regret for allowing other people to do the talking for me when I should have done it myself; regret for being too honest when I shouldn't have, and for words left unspoken that should have been said; regret that I was out of state taking care of Mom and unable to be with Sally when she died; sad that standing for justice is not always rewarded and that the truth does not always prevail.  Sadness and depression are not normal for me and I don’t like it, yet siblings and nieces have shared the same experience – a delayed reaction to those years which we all spent in survival mode; dealing with the two deaths after short-term bouts of cancer and four years of caring for Mom who was rendered an invalid from a brain injury.  There was no time to grieve!

For myself, I’ve learned not to go through a divorce, a life altering brain injury, and illness and death all in the same year;  each of which encompass loss and draw out friends who don’t understand.  It’s like being in a canoe heading towards a waterfall and those who are on the shoreline are either throwing bricks at you or yelling words of advice, and you are trying to figure out which is which.   The bricks will sink you for sure and the advice may or may not apply, and you are just paddling, grasping for any stick or log that floats by, hoping that it will get you to shore - though about half will ultimately drag you over the falls.  That was my 2004-2009!

            But then I go back to the party; the setting in the woods donned in history and I see some of that regret and sadness washing right over the water falls when I realize that we can’t control how other people respond, what they say, or what they believe to be true.  We can’t control brain injuries, sickness, or death.  But we can control the setting in which we experience those things, particularly the grief.  And in spite of all of the would’ve, could’ve, should’ves, I realize now that I controlled what I could – and that was my environment; what I see when I look out the window, the climate I live in, and the overall personality of where I live – which is much more empathetic.  And though I must still, at times, walk through the shadow of death, loss, sickness and regret, I have chosen my setting of where this will take place.  And though oddly, this delayed reaction hangs over me this year like a dark cloud, being there in the woods walking the trails, listening to music, eating the food, and sharing wine, I’m thankful that I get to go through this here in paradise.   And I thank the host (no name so the party doesn’t go viral next year) for making me a part, for sharing history and the beauty of his piece of heaven with me.    Thank you Mr. Host, and thank you Mr. John!  Merry Christmas from Dixie!