Memories and Passings-By

Interesting name that I once ran across: Rosean Contreraseckstrom.  Interesting enough that I wrote it down on a post-it note and carried it around in my stuff for several years.

Try not to judge and move forward.

All the sticky is gone on the post it note, having amassed a collection of dust, lint, and assorted fuzz and dirt over the years.

I throw the post-it note into my recycling tray.  Rosean, we hardly knew ye.

Try not to judge, and move forward.

How about a Journal Jar prompt?  Yay!

But first-- a word about Al Davis.  What I hear a lot of people saying is "You either loved him or you hate him."  I just want to say that's not the case with me.  I have a lot (and I mean a very lot) of respect for Mr. Al Davis.  He made the NFL an amazing thing, and you can't love football without acknowledging his greatness as an innovator.  But I didn't love him either-- he downright pissed me off many a time.  I move forward with the thought that he was a great man who is still greatly loved.  Condolences are in order.  Just win, baby.

And now!  The Journal Jar.

Describe a childhood Christmas.

Whoo.  Geez.  Just one?  Man.  So many ways we could go here...  I remember the Christmas when I was five and my grandmother died.  I remember the empty pained expression on my dad's face that morning as we kids tried to celebrate.  I remember the stuffed bear-- a bean bag bear-- that my grandma gave to my sister that year.  My sister was only two, but we both were sentimental about that bear.  I wonder if she still has it somewhere, almost forty years later.

Despite the ominous circumstances, that was still a wonderful Christmas.  There was beauty in how my dad allowed us kids to celebrate and revel in the excitement that is Christmas morning, even though his heart wasn't in it.  We had fun opening our presents, and we got toys and stuff.  But I knew something was wrong.  I've been able to reconstruct things as an adult and remember dates and such.  But nothing substitutes for that raw emotion, when an adult is grieving.  It made an impression on me at five and a half years old.  I still remember the moment to this day-- the room we were in, the placement of the Christmas tree, colors and smells.  And the joy above it all because we had love in our family to keep us together and give us strength.  I didn't think these thoughts that day, because I didn't have the words or the emotional maturity to think them.  But my mind left me a post-it note, and I've carried it with me for almost forty years.

This post-it will someday be recycled, too.  Try not to judge and move forward.