My father’s death, and, holiday depression

I haven’t written yet about the blessing Lesa and I have had of enjoying the visit of my two daughters for Christmas. Elizabeth noted that it was the first time the three of us (herself, her sister and I) had been together for Christmas since she was one year old. Lesa has been thrilled to have them here- she loves them and they love her, and Lesa enjoys nothing more than going all out to “deck the halls” and bake and cook all night long, hosting a tea party and an open house, and organizing a caroling serenade around the neighborhood. A classic Christmas, complete with a full day of fresh snowfall Christmas Eve.

And at the center of it, Christ- eternally begotten of the Father without a mother, now begotten without a father by the virgin mother; the Uncontainable contained within the virgin’s womb, the Creator held by the created, the Unapproachable approached by shepherds and kings. Saturday evening we had our regular Great Vespers service, on Sunday the regular Matins and Liturgy services, then Monday the Christmas Eve service, and Tuesday, Christmas Day service. The season of anticipation is replaced by the feast of fulfillment, and followed by the twelve days of Christmas celebration.

This is when the break between Church and World is most jarring and obvious, and why I will always take the week of Christmas off from work. At home, and in our church and neighborhood we celebrate Christmas for almost another two weeks, and I still want to cry “Merry Christmas!” to my co-workers. But for them, Christmas is over, the offices are sanitized of all decorations, the radio music back to “golden oldies”. I feel so sorry for them.

Yesterday, the 26th, we had scheduled a sleigh ride for eight o’clock. We were about halfway through dinner when my sister called with the news that father had died that morning. My daughters, of course, were also shaken at the news of grandpa’s passing (they had lost their other grandfather several years earlier).

What a blessing that we were all together to comfort and support one another. What a blessing that we had on hand a prayer book with the Orthodox services for the departed. We had his official Army portrait photo, at about 20-yrs-old, that we put on our home altar. We lit the candles and incense, and sang the service together. I considered canceling the sleigh ride, but Lesa had the wiser advice- that father would not have wanted us to do that, that we should go and enjoy it after a manner of a family “wake” for him. So we did, and did enjoy it immensely; after we got home I poured a shot of good Highland Scotch for each of us, and recounted what stories I could about father. Then I taught them the Gaelic toast and response which, phonetically, sounds like “Slantje!” “Slantje Vor!”, i.e., “[to your] Health!, and “[to your] great health!”, and we drank to his memory. Then we held each other, and it was very good.

Now, this is not something that will “spoil” Christmas for me for the rest of my life. I think there is actually a special blessing to family deaths that occur at Christmas or Easter time- we are forced to- if not already inclined to do so- we are compelled to be more aware of the true meaning and significance of those holidays, those holy days. And that, of course, is that the child of Bethlehem was God come to us in the flesh, and born for just one purpose- to die, and “by death trample down Death”. That is a message of hope and of joy. To Him be glory and honor, now and ever and unto ages of ages, amen.

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I was glad to read this article that was carried in the Anchorage Daily News this week, regarding a new and comprehensive study that seems to pretty well refute the old saw about Christmas Holiday depression. I have long thought that it was a Grinch-y myth, compulsively trotted out each year by the grinch-y media “intelligencia” to throw cold water on the joyful occasion. Do you think they’ll lay off now? I doubt it; it has probably attained a life of it’s own, so entrenched it’s become in the “common knowledge” of what everyone “knows” to be true. Ah well, another reminder that “what everyone knows, ain’t necessarily so”… and the “everyone’ includes scientists as well.

Christ is born! Glorify Him!