Happy Holidays

Grey and black slush pooled between hurried footsteps, trampled flat by people wrapped in too many layers. Muffled pardons and half said "happy holidays" brushed past me at store thresholds, words slipping through scarves and evaporating like hot breath into the cold. Every holiday season I'm dealt the same two hands: my love for the season, and the memory of her. The game goes on and the aches keep rising. 

I become a stranger with a script. That's the cost of the balancing act of life after meeting death. Figuring out how to count energy like poker chips. Winter is naturally isolating. Cold, hurried, closed off. It's easy to forget the lighter lovelier sides of humanity when everyone is bundled up and moving fast. Having a different default sentence this time of year- is something more than just the usual "Hi", "Hello", "How are ya”-- words we say without really seeing each other. "Have a happy holiday" feels like a small interruption. A moment of acknowledgement. A reminder that we're sharing the same season, even if just for a second.

A scar has formed by the years of carefully made Christmases crafted by my mom, now gone, her absence louder than the season itself. What grounds me is knowing that by December, most people are carrying more than they're saying. The year has had time to settle into shoulders, into the way conversations shorten and patience wears. 

I learned it first from her, from my mom. "No need to make little comments. If there's nothing nice to say- you don't need to say anything at all. And if someone comes along with 'So-and-so said this about you', just know that they're feeding off your hurt too."

Words are spells. Some light up the room, some land like bullets. Some words slip out like curses, stubborn, poisonous, sharp. And there are rare words, kind words, the counter spells that would become the Royal Flush to win it all. 

I'm left to hold tight the gentle warmth of a potential hand worth surviving for, if only for a passing moment.