Yesterday was pull-out-the-big-green-plastic-tubs-full of Christmas and decorate day.

In keeping with our tradition, we picked out a few of our favorite Christmas CD’s, poured wine, lit candles and incense and began giving this little home a holiday look and feel. 

It was all good til I saw the four stockings that we hang near the fireplace; Bartles, Jaymes, Lincoln & LooLoo.

I remember the tears the first time we hung Jimmy’s stocking and he wasn’t here anymore…..and then Bartie, but Linkie?  That’s too fresh.  He was just here!

I sat on floor and held tight to his stocking as if that would bring me closer to him and my mind drifted.

Who knew that last Christmas was REALLY our LAST Christmas with our “boy”?

What I DO know is that 2019 will hold all sorts of unknowns for many of us, both good and bad. 

The good stuff is easy to take.

It’s the other I thought about as I hugged Linkie’s stocking; 

the strange symptoms that will send us to our docs and the diagnoses we don’t want to hear.

the check-ups for the parasites already living in our bodies hoping we’re still keeping them from devouring us.  

the bad news that will travel fast as it always does and how it stops us in our tracks and changes everything.

the stuff that some of us can deal with and the stuff that some of us can’t and how either way, we begin to see so much so different.

I guess it’s unrealistic to reach my eigth decade and not see and experience a bunch of crap that I wished would never have happened.  

But, it’s all going faster and faster now.  

I want it to stop.

I don’t want to hear about anything happening to any of my girls that will force them out of their comfortable life and into the throes of the unknown.

I don’t want to hear that someone we’ve known and loved for almost ever has now been slapped in the face with something devastating that will soon rule his life.

I don’t want to know that another family member or one more friend has died.

Some of this stuff we can control, some of it will control us.

I thought about and wondered how many people who began 2018 aren’t here anymore?

I wondered if we knew at the beginning of this year that it would be the last for some, would it have made a difference and if yes…..then why don’t we make that difference NOW because,  just like this year, 2019 will be the exit for many more.

Some of us will dodge the bullet one more year but many won’t.

Like Linkie…..he was just here and now he’s gone.

Could we have loved him any deeper than we did?  NOPE!

Could we have changed anything so now we wouldn’t have to “wished we wouldda’”?

NOPE!

I’m wonderin’…..could you?

Are you takin’ this life for granted like it’ll never end?

Are you “too busy”?

It WILL stop you smack where you stand one day.

Don’t be sorry, don’t wish you wouldda.

I don’t mean for my thoughts to be all sad, all gloom and doom.

That’s not real either!

2019 will bring much happiness along the way; marriages, babies, new lovers, new puppies, new jobs, new homes, happy retirements, vacations, visits with dear old friends and finding new friends.

Let’s all put our heads up for a moment and appreciate what we have and what we DON’T have.

Let’s step out of our little boxes and extend our hands.

It’s a giving time of the year…..let’s give.

There’s something every one of us can do, even just the teeniest thing, just do SOMETHING.

And don’t stop.  

It’s not just Thanksgiving and Christmas that people are hungry and in need, it’s sadly every day, all the time.

There’s so many ways we can help and I promise you, it WILL enrich your life, you’ll have NO regrets for helping others and it just may make us all better, more tolerable, loving people.   

UPDATED ENTRY 12/24/2020

AND THEN THERE WAS 2020!

We said good-bye to our Sweet LooLoo and the box holding our four furry kids stockings was never opened this Christmas season.

So many of us have suffered heartache this year.

We’ve been knocked down.

And now?

It’s time to stand up tall, remember who we are, COME TOGETHER, LEND OUR HANDS and HEAL.

xxx