Putting the Lid on 2011

I once read an article about life stressors which assigned points for the types of events that occur in your life. So many points for birth, death, wedding, job change or loss, a move, etc. and, of course, the more points you had, the more likely you were to be maxed out with stress. Thirty years ago I managed to accumulate enough points to, theoretically, give me a heart attack. In 1981 I went through a divorce and a new marriage (complete with two stepdaughters), lost two grandparents, moved three times, ended one job and began another in a brand new city, and bought a new house. My health didn’t suffer, so I guess it’s true what one of my stepdaughters tells me, that “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

This past year, 2011, was a bookend: I gave up two pets, sold the home I’d lived in the longest ever, went through a major downsize of possessions, moved to a new city and said goodbye to friends I’ve had the longest ever. Thank goodness there were no deaths in the immediate family, although a great-aunt died on Christmas. Thank goodness I’m not looking for a new job too! And, most of all, thank goodness Bill and I were able to celebrate 30 years together and start this adventure in good health!

While visiting my family in Chicago over Christmas my mother dug up the address of the house we lived in here in Jacksonville in 1958-59. Coincidentally, it’s only a couple of miles from our marina, but 50+ years has changed the area dramatically. Back then it was “out in the country”, now it’s part of the city of Jacksonville. We were here because my father’s first congregation after finishing his studies at the seminary was here, an all black church that is still functioning today. We only stayed 18 months because the Klanners didn’t appreciate a white man ministering to black people. It only took a couple of bomb threats before the elders of the congregation regretfully asked us to leave. The family headed south to Miami Beach, to a new start-up church primarily serving nearby military bases. Then in 1962 Fidel Castro decided to posture a bit and my elementary school incorporated missile defense activities into the curriculum. I was never sure how crouching under the desk in my first grade classroom would protect me from a bomb.

Tonight Bill and I observe a tradition we started over 20 years ago when he was a pilot for USAirways: celebrating Christmas together on New Year’s Eve. For many years Bill pulled trips on Christmas, then we spent the holidays first in Phoenix with his mother and then with my family in Chicago, so it was just a postponement of our own gift giving.

So as we unwrap packages tonight and ring in the new year, we’ll package up the memories of 2011 and put a lid on it! May 2012 be bright and beautiful for you, and may you know the love and saving grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

To Us

I’ve been looking at life through my mother-in-law’s eyes lately. I hear her voice in my head exclaim, “Oh, isn’t that elegant!” and I remember her unfeigned delight at the littlest of refinements. A carafe of water on her bedside table. White linen tablecloths and matching napkins. Nibbles, as she called them, enjoyed with a pre-dinner glass of wine. Her favorite toast was simple: To us!

Catharine was especially insistent that anniversaries be commemorated with an elegant dinner. For nearly 10 years after my father-in-law died she would arrive in Pittsburgh for the Christmas holiday a few days before our anniversary. We always celebrated it with her, the three of us dining atop Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington, or in the Strip District, or at a cozy suburban restaurant. Our 20^th anniversary was the last one she spent with us. Travel was difficult that year 2001 and the post-holiday flight back to Sun City was the last she would take. A painful bout of shingles followed by a broken hip and a fall ensured that we would have to go to her for the next several Christmases, arriving well after our anniversary date.

Today her son and I celebrated 30 years of marriage, enjoying dinner at a new-to-us restaurant in a new city. Although it was not “white tablecloth” – in fact, there was no tablecloth – we were grateful to be in a position where we could afford a meal out.

I inherited a lot of elegant things from my mother-in-law, some of them surrendered this summer at garage sales, most of them in storage for who knows how long. There’s not a lot of room here on the Pure Grace for elegant stuff, and although boats and glass don’t mix well, I do insist on serving that pre-dinner drink in a real wine glass. To us, Catharine!

It Shall Be So

The Christmas season officially began on Saturday, December 3 at 8 p.m. Although we start Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving because that’s a box that needs to be checked as soon as possible, the season really doesn’t start until we’ve taken in a performance of Handel’s Messiah.

In years past, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Mendelssohn Choir would perform this beloved oratorio not until the third weekend in December. Oh, sure, we put the tree up a week prior and I decorated the house, sent out cards, baked cookies (back when I was actually interested in doing that), but in my heart, it wasn’t Christmas until I heard the Hallelujah Chorus. There were many years in the past 30 that Messiah was not performed at Heinz Hall, so we made do with recordings…but it just wasn’t the same.

So yesterday I purchased five dozen homemade Christmas cookies at a local church cookie walk, we put up a small tree and affixed a wreath to the bow window, and then we got dressed up and headed the five miles into downtown Jacksonville for the performance. We had perfect seats, eleven rows from the stage, right in the center. Not quite close enough to see the mezzo-soprano’s tonsils when she sang the recitatives from Luke 2, but close enough to watch the very expressive faces of the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus.

We found that we were seated next to the symphony’s development director, whose husband soft pedaled a subscription to the 2012 Masterworks series of performances. We do plan to take in another concert this spring, courtesy of two vouchers in return for bringing a toy for The Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Toy Drive.

I loved every part of Messiah, but my favorite is the final Amen Chorus, and not because it’s the end of the performance! Christmas has begun. It shall be so!