Gifts

I love giving gifts.  I love picking up on little hints even if people don't know they are hints and surprising someone with a thoughtful gift that even they didn't realize how badly they wanted.  I've been known to wrap up all sorts of little trinkets and let someone unwrap them all and then "whoops" I forgot the card.  Give that to them last and in the card it says the trinkets are just for show that their REAL gift is tickets to a sporting event.  (I took my now ex-husband to a Chiefs game - he is a lifelong fan and had never seen them in Kansas City - I scored excellent tickets and took him to a game - yes, I rock :) )

I've been known to buy something in February for a Christmas gift (and then sometimes I forget I have it and then get something different and then find it randomly the next June and give a 'just because' gift).  I LIKE doing this.  No one in my life has ever lived up to my expectations in this department because I think everyone should be like me and able to pick up on things. 

My Daddy?  He was possibly the hardest person to buy gifts for.  He was the man who had everything and then some.  And if he wanted something?  There was no patience, he would buy it for himself.  So gift giving was always...a treat with him.  I would sometimes resort to gift cards to his favorite pilot store because a. I knew he would put it to good use and b. I didn't have a gajillion dollars to buy what he REALLY wanted from that store.

One year just after he had purchased his Cessna 182 - affectionately known as Ruby - I bought him a pilots bag in blazing red to match.  He didn't know he wanted it.  But he LOVED that bag.  He used it everytime he took Ruby for a little fly. 

One year I bought him an airplane of shiny polished wood from a kiosk in the mall.  He didn't even know that something like it existed but I think he liked it.  He put it up in his office.

Last year?  The mans slippers were falling apart.  Me, being me, noticed this and decided to get him new ones.  I found some wonderful sheepskin slippers with a hard bottom on them so they could be worn outside to get the paper in the mornings.  He liked them and didn't even realize he needed them until he got them. 

I purchased those slippers from a kiosk in the mall (note: if you have a hard to buy for person on your gift giving list - the holiday kiosks in the mall have fun stuff!).  I spent a small fortune on sheepskin slippers so he could replace the ugly old worn out ones.

He wore them.  For a few months.  And now?  The kiosk in the mall is back.  I walked past it last night and just got this feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I then had what I would call a rough night for the rest of it.  Crying on and off and unable to sleep.  Unsettled. 

I didn't realize until about 4:00 this morning that the reason I was unsettled was because of that stupid kiosk.  It's back.  That means the holidays are fast approaching.  That means we will have one less person with us this year.  That means those slippers that I bought him last year are sitting still looking brand new without feet to go in them. 

And you know what?  IT'S NOT FAIR.  It's not fair that he didn't get to wear his slippers more.  It's not fair that we didn't know that last Thanksgiving would be our last with him.  It's not fair that while we were snowed in on Christmas Eve and we gathered around him and listened to the Christmas story as he read from the Bible will be the last Christmas memory I have of him.  It's NOT FAIR.

He always gave my Mama gorgeous jewelry for Christmas that was purchased on either December 23 or 24.  He would go in to the jewelry store and pick something out and THEN look at the price.  It didn't matter.  He would then have the jewelry store wrap it or bring it back to the house for K or I to wrap.  It was always exciting on Christmas Eve for Mama to have a little box to open.  It was a surprise what color would be in there.  Would it be blue?  Pink?  Or just the shiny white ones?  He spoiled her and she deserved it. 

It's NOT FAIR that we will have to give thanks for all that we have all the while we are angry for what is missing.  There will be no wine on our Thanksgiving table this year because Daddy was the only one who really drank any. 

We will not be spending our sacred Christmas holidays at Mama's house.  It's too painful for all of us.  Christmas was OUR thing.  It was OUR night.  Oyster Stew, Barbecues, opening presents, grasshoppers, caramel rolls in the morning.  Mama and her many trees.  Daddy making fun of the many trees but yet somehow had pictures of EVERY.SINGLE.ONE. of them to show off to people who asked.

It's just NOT FAIR.  I want to struggle to find his gift.  I want to wrap his little boxes for Mama.  I want to tease him about being the guy out shopping on Christmas Eve.  I want to go back to last year when we were snowed in at their house and shake myself and make me realize that it was last Christmas we would spend with him.  

As we start to enter the holidays I am acutely aware of how different things are.  Of how different they will be.  I honestly would like to just skip ahead to about March 1st.  That way Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday and Valentine's Day will all be over.  The hurt that I know is coming will be a memory and not an anxiety induced dread.

It helps that there is not yet snow on the ground.  It helps knowing that this year is Gigi's year with me for Christmas.  It helps knowing that we will be in a different location (looks like the exotic locale of Bismarck, ND is calling our name for Christmas).  It helps knowing that we need to put on our happy faces for the kids.  

But it doesn't make it really any easier.  And really?  It doesn't make it more fair either.  Life is not fair...I know this.  Life is not easy...I know this as well.  I just hope and pray that for the next few months that life is as fair and as easy as it can be, for all of our sakes.  

*sigh*  Is it spring yet?