At this very moment, homes across the United States are filled with the aroma of Turkeys roasting, desserts baking and soon families gathering. However, not all homes will be filled with this, but as a child you are not privy to the truth. You’re sold a myth and then you’re expected to perpetuate that myth. I remember those times well. The fake happiness to see relatives you never speak to otherwise, engaging in polite conversation while having spent the day or days before dreading their very arrival. The relief when they leave.
Thanksgiving 2015. I was very thankful that day for my Lexie, still battling cancer, had beaten the odds. Given only three months to live in March, she had now made it nine. Yes, I was very thankful that day, but soon I would lose all happiness. I’m a giving person. I donate a lot of my time to charity work, be it registered charities or just helping friends and strangers, strangers who I like to think of as friends I haven’t met yet. Still, happiness over the holidays had vanished. Don’t get me wrong, with Lexie by my side, I found happiness just about everywhere, but that Norman Rockwell childhood happiness most of us experienced had vanished and was replaced by truth.
As a child I simply thought this myth was unique to our family and we’d just pretend so as not to let anyone in on our secret, but as the years carried on and I began to experience holidays with others, I saw it again and again. Holiday after holiday, year after year, the myth was carried out all across this country and by now I knew, across the world. Norman Rockwell was a lie.
For most of us, we perpetuate the myth to prove a point or show that we are bigger, better or stronger than those around us. To admit to others that we actually have emotions opposite what we display would be to admit to truth and the truth hurts. For many, Thanksgiving sets off a time of year when truth becomes so overwhelming that they must hide from it. Alcohol, Drugs or simply burying those emotions deep within oneself are the tools employed by many as a means of coping with this time.
For some of us, we’ve woken up and realized that there is no need to perpetuate the myth any longer. For us, this time of year is even harder than the deniers because while the deniers are hiding, our eyes open. We can see the lies, the fake hugs and phony smiles. We remember the secret conversations you told about Uncle Paul or Aunt Jean. We heard you talk about your Mother in Law or your brother. We listened as you spoke and watched how you behaved and we could no longer participate in this charade. There is no other time in the year were so many hide so much, but the people whom no longer care about the myth can truly see what is missing.
Unconditional Love
The dictionary defines love as such
Love:
noun
an intense feeling of deep affection.
“babies fill parents with intense feelings of love”synonyms: deep affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment; devotion, adoration, doting, idolization, worship; passion, ardor, desire, lust, yearning, infatuation, besottedness
“his friendship with Helen grew into love”
compassion, care, caring, regard, solicitude, concern, friendliness, friendship, kindness, charity, goodwill, sympathy, kindliness, altruism, unselfishness, philanthropy, benevolence, fellow feeling, humanity
I no longer care about trying to live up to a Norman Rockwell painting. No longer care about perpetuating the myth. I don’t hide in a bottle or behind my skin. I don’t go to church and ask a mythical god to forgive sins I made to someone or something else. If it’s forgiveness I seek, I seek it from those I wronged.
So as you sit down to dinner today and pretend to be thankful while secretly thinking otherwise, look around at your table and see what’s truly missing.
LOVE!
Not the fake love so many of us portray with the fake smile, hugs and kisses but true unconditional love. A Love that is all-inclusive, all forgiving, unselfish and compassionate.
In just 30 days, on the eve of Christmas as others prepare to perpetuate yet another myth, I’ll be marking one year since cancer took Lexie from me. Perhaps the greatest gift she gave me was the ability to love unconditionally. She also taught me that our time here is very limited and we can’t spend it pretending to be the people in a painting.
No, we can’t all get along, but we don’t have to live a lie, we don’t have to perpetuate a myth and we don’t have to treat others with disdain. You cannot be true to yourself until you are true with others.
While true happiness still evades me since her passing, I will leave you with these words from m friend and author John Roche.
Happy. Thanks. Giving.
If you’re not the first, start at the last and work your way back.
~John Roche
You’ll find me today, serving food to those friends I haven’t met yet.