The real magic of Christmas and New Year
(published 12-22-10, Manila Standard Today)
I sometimes think of Christmas and New Year as fraternal twins, outwardly different but fostered by the same magic.
Christmas is the more popular sister, gay and frivolous, boisterous and scintillating. She is known for her excesses; spending money with abandon, gorging on treats and drinking herself silly with family and friends. The ultimate party girl -- that's Christmas.
She loves nothing better than organizing family reunions, office parties, choral concerts, and Nutcracker ballets. Christmas is generous to a fault and has made lavish gift-giving a global tradition.
Children of all ages wait for her with bated breath. They know Christmas is a weaver of dreams and a sorceress of great wizardry. She conjures all kinds of toys and fanciful tales of busy elves, reindeer that fly and a jolly old man with a long white beard and a belly full of jelly.
For most of the year Christmas stays hidden and unnoticed, and sadly, there are those who prefer not to see her at all. In fact if the liberal PC (politically-correct) extremists in the United States prevail, Christmas will one day be totally annihilated, replaced by an atheistimpostor named “Winter Holiday.” (I can only hope my home country does not also devolve into this asinine secularism.)
How many of us remember Christmas’ humble origins in Bethlehem,especially now that public display of the manger and the holy family is increasingly frowned upon? Instead, the commercial mystique surrounding Christmas has gone viral. Those merchants outside the temple whom Jesus tried to banish are back in full force hawking their merchandise through Google, Facebook, YouTube, Tweeter, iPad and iPhone. There are hundreds more of these Web-based infidels and their numbers are growing exponentially.
Even as I type these words I know the merchants are camped behind my computer screen ready to launch their assault through cyberspace. Their Internet sniffers have discovered I am looking for new tech toys for 12-year old Cole, clothes and accessories for Sharon and Carla, and a new winter coat for Jason.
My Inbox is deluged with special offers and holiday promotions, all geared toward my interests and online shopping history. I am powerless to resist such onslaught. I lay my neck on the block, prepared to bleed my hard-earned dollars with a big smile on my face.
Christmas does that to people—makes them act silly and reckless and impetuous. It is the time of the year for hugs and kisses and teary reunions, overblown sentiments, grand gestures and promises we can’t keep.
It’s good to know that after all the excitement, the frenzy and disruption that Christmas brings, New Year is soon upon us.
New Year is the more responsible sister who stays in the background while Christmas takes center stage. When it’s her turn, she is ushered in with a big bang, a lot of noise and a huge party for old times’ sake.
But after the champagne and the confetti, New Year rolls up her sleeves and resolutely tries to undo the harm done by her frivolous sister. Bills have to be paid down; unwanted pounds have to be shed, waistlines reduced and unsightly bulges gotten rid of. The house has to be put back the way it was before Christmas let loose her colored lights and balls, ribbons and wreaths, candles, bows
and mistletoes.
New Year goes shopping—not for gaily wrapped gifts, but for dozens of totes and boxes of all shapes and sizes. In the next few weeks she will sort, organize, label and put away Christmas and all her glittery accessories. In her own methodical way, New Year conspires to keep Christmas hidden until it’s time for her to break out and cast her magic spell all over again.
In the meantime there are lists to be made: The Best American Essays of 2010, The Year’s Top Inventions and Technological Gadgets, The Top Ten Stories of the Year; the worst- and best-dressed female entertainers; the best bumper stickers; and the best and worst Super Bowl ads of 2010. My favorite remains David Letterman’s top 10 reasons why there can never be a Filipino-American US president. Number one on the list—Air Force One does not allow overweight Balikbayan boxes.
But the list that really matters is our personal New Year’s resolutions. Traditional favorites include spending more time with family and friends, learning something new, breaking bad habits, and becoming more fit. I like what one comic once said, “Next year I will no longer waste my time relieving the past; instead I will spend it worrying about the future.”
No matter what, it is the challenge and the disappointment of unmet resolves and broken promises that gives Christmas that edgy, frenetic energy that some of us find so addictive. We celebrate the year’s imminent demise with great abandon and cheer knowing we have failed yet again, but it’s all right; New Year gives us another chance to make up and try once more.
It is this message of hope and renewal that ultimately transcends the growing crassness and commercialism of each holiday season. It is the real magic at the heart of Christmas and New Year.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
A parent’s worst nightmare
(published 12-06-10, Manila Standard Today)
I never thought I would outlive my child.
I delivered my son after hours of excruciating labor. I should have had an easy time; my stomach was small. But he was my first child and they say the first is always the most difficult to birth. I cried when I first laid eyes on him. Dexter was born with a cleft palate and a hair lip.
He was barely a week old when he underwent surgery on his palate. For the next several months we fed him through a medicine dropper. A baby’s first instinct is to suck and although Dex tried mightily, he couldn’t do it with a split upper lip. He cried all the time. I cried along with him.
Dexter had two more surgeries before he turned seven but even when the gap in his palate reappeared as he got older, he refused to be put under the knife again. Instead he became adept at swallowing his food right and keeping his nasal passages clear so he could breathe properly. He grew up to be a strikingly handsome young man.
Dex worked his way through college and saved what he could to buy an Acura Integra. He was crazy about that car. All his spare cash went into sprucing it up, upgrading it, and making sure the engine and tires were in top shape so he could race it. Because racing was his second love. On weekends or after school and work on weekdays, he would gather with other young people his age talking cars and racing when they could. I’d never seen my son happier.
But I worried he would get into an accident. In the evenings before allowing myself to sleep I would wait to hear the hum of his engine, the sharp click of his car door or the bass rhythm of his radio. One time we found him in the garage fast asleep at the wheel of his car. He said he came home very late and tired, coming straight from the race after work. That car would cost your life, I warned. Prophetic words.
One afternoon at work I got a panicked call from my daughter. The cops were at the house; Dexter was hurt; he had been taken to Madigan Hospital.
All the way to the hospital I was thinking Dex had finally done it—gotten into an accident on his car. I prayed he wasn’t hurt bad. I negotiated with the God the German nuns at the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila had taught me to worship. I’d never prayed more desperately.
But I was wrong. Dex had not been hurt in an accident. A petty criminal had taken a fancy to his Acura Integra. He carjacked Dex, shot him in the head when he refused to give up his car, and left him by the wayside. The doctors at the hospital trauma unit told me Dexter’s wound was “unsurvivable.” He was brain dead when I got there. My oldest child and only son. Gone.
I cannot describe all the emotions that roiled inside me at that moment. I remember sobbing and saying “No” over and over again—not my first born, my only boy, the child of my heart.
How could such a cruel thing have happened in the United States? We left the Philippines for the opportunity America offered and because we no longer felt safe in my native country. How ironic that my son had been killed in this quiet Northwest city called Tacoma that I had considered my second home, perfect for raising my family.
Dexter hadn’t been a member of any gang. He didn’t do drugs, didn’t frequent bars, didn’t own a gun, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. He worked; he went to school; and during his free time he raced his car. How could such innocent pursuits cut his life short so violently? How could any member of my family—all well-educated, God-fearing, peace-loving, hard-working citizens —be even remotely touched by evil? HOW COULD GOD ALLOW IT?
That day I parted with my maker irrevocably.
I’d like to say that the pain of losing my son has diminished over the years but I’d be lying. Any parent who has ever lost a child suddenly and violently will probably never recover from the trauma. But we learn to hide it better because other people—friends and family members included—are often uncomfortable (even impatient) with any display of raw emotions. They do not want to see us in pain; they want to cheer us on to recovery. I’ve heard it all: “Get over it. It’s been years. He’s in a better place. Don’t wallow in your grief. Time to move on.”
As if grief can be turned off like a tap.
I live alone now. My daughters are grown and out of the house. My husband of 30 years has moved to the east coast. I’m as content as can be expected but holidays are hard, especially around Christmas. Dexter loved the gaiety and fun, the shopping, the presents, good times with the family. He lives in my heart but it’s not the same. I miss him terribly.
I wonder if I will ever see him again.
(published 12-06-10, Manila Standard Today)
I never thought I would outlive my child.
I delivered my son after hours of excruciating labor. I should have had an easy time; my stomach was small. But he was my first child and they say the first is always the most difficult to birth. I cried when I first laid eyes on him. Dexter was born with a cleft palate and a hair lip.
He was barely a week old when he underwent surgery on his palate. For the next several months we fed him through a medicine dropper. A baby’s first instinct is to suck and although Dex tried mightily, he couldn’t do it with a split upper lip. He cried all the time. I cried along with him.
Dexter had two more surgeries before he turned seven but even when the gap in his palate reappeared as he got older, he refused to be put under the knife again. Instead he became adept at swallowing his food right and keeping his nasal passages clear so he could breathe properly. He grew up to be a strikingly handsome young man.
Dex worked his way through college and saved what he could to buy an Acura Integra. He was crazy about that car. All his spare cash went into sprucing it up, upgrading it, and making sure the engine and tires were in top shape so he could race it. Because racing was his second love. On weekends or after school and work on weekdays, he would gather with other young people his age talking cars and racing when they could. I’d never seen my son happier.
But I worried he would get into an accident. In the evenings before allowing myself to sleep I would wait to hear the hum of his engine, the sharp click of his car door or the bass rhythm of his radio. One time we found him in the garage fast asleep at the wheel of his car. He said he came home very late and tired, coming straight from the race after work. That car would cost your life, I warned. Prophetic words.
One afternoon at work I got a panicked call from my daughter. The cops were at the house; Dexter was hurt; he had been taken to Madigan Hospital.
All the way to the hospital I was thinking Dex had finally done it—gotten into an accident on his car. I prayed he wasn’t hurt bad. I negotiated with the God the German nuns at the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila had taught me to worship. I’d never prayed more desperately.
But I was wrong. Dex had not been hurt in an accident. A petty criminal had taken a fancy to his Acura Integra. He carjacked Dex, shot him in the head when he refused to give up his car, and left him by the wayside. The doctors at the hospital trauma unit told me Dexter’s wound was “unsurvivable.” He was brain dead when I got there. My oldest child and only son. Gone.
I cannot describe all the emotions that roiled inside me at that moment. I remember sobbing and saying “No” over and over again—not my first born, my only boy, the child of my heart.
How could such a cruel thing have happened in the United States? We left the Philippines for the opportunity America offered and because we no longer felt safe in my native country. How ironic that my son had been killed in this quiet Northwest city called Tacoma that I had considered my second home, perfect for raising my family.
Dexter hadn’t been a member of any gang. He didn’t do drugs, didn’t frequent bars, didn’t own a gun, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. He worked; he went to school; and during his free time he raced his car. How could such innocent pursuits cut his life short so violently? How could any member of my family—all well-educated, God-fearing, peace-loving, hard-working citizens —be even remotely touched by evil? HOW COULD GOD ALLOW IT?
That day I parted with my maker irrevocably.
I’d like to say that the pain of losing my son has diminished over the years but I’d be lying. Any parent who has ever lost a child suddenly and violently will probably never recover from the trauma. But we learn to hide it better because other people—friends and family members included—are often uncomfortable (even impatient) with any display of raw emotions. They do not want to see us in pain; they want to cheer us on to recovery. I’ve heard it all: “Get over it. It’s been years. He’s in a better place. Don’t wallow in your grief. Time to move on.”
As if grief can be turned off like a tap.
I live alone now. My daughters are grown and out of the house. My husband of 30 years has moved to the east coast. I’m as content as can be expected but holidays are hard, especially around Christmas. Dexter loved the gaiety and fun, the shopping, the presents, good times with the family. He lives in my heart but it’s not the same. I miss him terribly.
I wonder if I will ever see him again.
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