So. Went to a Christmas Concert last night at a local Calgary University called Ambrose University. It is a Christian school. It had an excellent choir and a fair orchestra and the program was all in all pretty good – but it still didn’t get me there.
It has been an odd year, frankly. Being away from home the past five months has been pretty life changing. Having the switch back to the solo living existence intermittently, living without a car, the extreme cold weather here with all of its perils (slippery ice and freeze your face off cold)… and working out solutions to every day existence… Yeah, interesting. Not sure I am up for doing this again, though. Not being this far away. I miss my husband and my dog. You know you miss home when you feel pretty anxious about running out of coffee creamer. Silly stuff like that. Extreme worry about insignificant shit.
Guess it has taught me a few things… What about my life is precious – that I really do not want to waste my time left here on this planet, and that I have something poking at me that tells me that I need to contribute to the good of the place, and to its people, as best as I can… regardless… It’s one of those “greater good” things…
Anyhow, it’s Christmas season and I will contemplate this as it is meaningful to me in so many ways…
And as I reflect, the family has bonds that tie to the season – I missed my son Rob’s last Christmas – sadly… But, you can’t always have it 100% and I will just remember the one where we were together… in 2003 – where he was himself and the quintessential “Rob”.
Holding out for a blessed holiday… to be different this year – in New Zealand…
In the meantime we pray for a good outcome for our friends Chase and Tom McGowen – son and father, recipient and donor of another transplant to hopefully extend Chase’s opportunity for some more years… Gosh they have been through it…
Hope abounds in this Christmas Season of the birth of hope…
