Missing

As the holidays loom just over the horizon, I cannot remain untouched by the sentimentality of the approaching season.  As anyone who has lived with me for any length of time will attest, I seem to indulge my tendency toward melancholia when days grow shorter and our calendar grows dense with winter festivities.  Yes, I know there is medication for that.  But some feelings are better sat with than stuffed in a closet and denied.

To be honest, a part of me doesn't mind lingering in the past, spending time with these hounds of winter.... Especially this year, since my memory seems the only binding thread to those whose shadows departed from my door before the arrival of our daughter.

There are so many individuals missing from my social sphere whose absence evokes no small amount of fondness and longing, shaded with a tinge of regret.  

Some simply slipped from my daily life and were carried from reach by the rolling motion of passing years.  Some fell through fault lines of self-imposed separation, or simply by the dictates of distance.  A few I lost as collateral damage in a divorce.  And many are on the other side, perfect, whole, awaiting.

As the Beatles song goes, "Some are dead and some are living....In my life, I loved them all."

I miss my brother-in-ink Ben, whose tea on the lawn tete-a-tetes I now recognize as one of the few meaningful and positive moments of my single year in college.  I would like to hear him read Shel Silverstein to Ava with his flawless storybook-character diction.  

I miss my great-grandparents Tom and Pearl, whose lives gave mine a solid and dignified legacy to trace.  I wish Ava could follow Tom through the furrows of his garden and experience the thrill of picking something and eating it fresh from the vine. I wish she could learn to make drop biscuits with Pearl.

I miss Natalia, whose artwork still fascinates me. I would like to watch her fingerpaint with Ava and tell her tales of her youth in Russia or her years drifting in a houseboat through the watery underbelly of North America.  

I miss Aunt Laveta.  I wish that Ava could go to the movies with her at Christmastime, share a bucket of super-buttery popcorn with her, and just hear her laugh.

I miss Eric and Hila.  I wish that Ava could share a meal with two of the most joyful people I ever shared a table with.  I also wish that Hila could teach Ava a few choice phrases in Hebrew.

I miss Aunt Relda.  I wish that she was there to bring Ava a Dr. Pepper when she didn't feel good at school.  (I'm not sure what that worked in me back in the day, but it always did!)

I miss the Dorsey & Crawford families.  I wish they were here to model to Ava what rugged individualism and a tribal family lifestyle looks like ....and to teach her the difference between excellent coffee and swill.

I miss Granny and Pawpaw.  I would love to show Granny each and every facial expression that Ava inherited from her, and I wish Pawpaw could teach her the game of checkers and let her wear his hat with ear flaps.

Most of all, I miss Grandma Bennett.  I wish that she could see how the Bennett blue eyes defied the odds one more time in our daughter's genetic inheritance.  I wish she could see her own furrowed brow creases mirrored in Ava's "What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?" expression.  And I wish that she could watch Ava play with (a probably eat a little) wrapping paper on Christmas morning.

.....

I'll pause to spend my imagined encounters with these dear ones on cold mornings before the house awakens, or during nursery evenings in the glider with a babe in arms.

Some of these I may attempt to locate and try my luck at borrowing a snippet of their precious time so that Ava will know for herself how lovely they are. 

But all season long, there's no doubt that these ghosts-in-the-chimney will visit my sweet child through my stories, and through the moments of connection and kindness they once showed me, which now shades to the way I have learned to demonstrate love to my daughter.