Lack of Deliberateness ...

I have been slacking off - in many areas. Keeping up with this blog, laundry, housework ... Yes, Thanksgiving and illness played a part. But, it goes deeper than that. This is usually my favorite time of year. Autumn's coolness is replaced by winter's deep freeze, ever so slowly at first, until it is so cold, you just cannot remember what it was like to feel warm. Yet the holiday season - not the shopping season - brings with it a warmth all its own. I love Thanksgiving. My family used to make it a priority to be together - even if it meant celebrating the Friday after the official holiday. That, however, began to change - until now the family holiday no longer resembles the earlier ones. My love for the holidays is now tinged with sadness, a sadness based on a loss. My children will never know the feeling of big family gatherings -the noise, the laughter, the ridiculousness of the conversations between the braggarts and the bigger braggarts, the general feeling of family beyond those with whom they live on a daily basis. In my own childhood, huge family gatherings became a thing of the past shortly after I was born. Grainy footage is all that remains of the gatherings that preceded my birth - homes overflowing with cousins, and presents, and food; aunts and uncles who knew their nieces and nephews by more than name, and were involved in their lives on a regular basis. Perhaps it was far from idyllic - the fact that it fell out of practice would indicate this. But it was still a period of time I have long wished to be part of, and have truly hoped would be part of my children's experience.

When the first chill of autumn fills the air, it sometimes comes as a shock. After all, it may have been seventy degrees just yesterday. It is not totally unexpected, however, as it is natural, part of the change of seasons. But when change comes to your family, and your family's way of life, and it happens gradually, over many years, as traditions are allowed to slide, or attention is not given to the deliberateness life requires in order for it to be ... good, and special, the shock may be much more deeply felt - and the natural order of things may be such that winter's freeze may never again be replaced by the warmth of spring.