Last-Minute Preparations

Dearest Rachel –

As embarrassed as I may be to relate this to you, at least I can take comfort in the fact that you wouldn’t be giving me grief about it, as you were every bit as prone to procrastination (on a regular basis, I might add) as I have been this Christmas season. Regardless, however, this is not a position that I’m proud of being in. As of 4 p.m. yesterday evening, I had yet to sign a single card or wrap any packages (aside from the one belonging to Daniel, as I couldn’t have him nosing around and possibly stumbling on what I’ve gotten him). And that’s to say nothing about the brunch I still had to start preparing in order to refrigerate overnight.

In my defense, I have to point out that the situation with Dad has thrown a serious wrench in my plans and efforts. Thank goodness I had most of my shopping already done before he took sick, or I would have never managed to even be close to completing things. As it stood, I decided to cut corners by basically wrapping up a single box of stuff for everyone, rather than going through all the rigamarole of wrapping each purchase individually. It takes a bit of the joy of opening each gift out of the day, but given that today is to be split between a ‘conventional’ Christmas – albeit at Jenn’s place rather than the folks’, but still – and the convalescent home, cutting the process short wherever possible shouldn’t be objected to too strenuously.

Besides – and this should please you to the point of asking why you didn’t think of this sooner yourself – having everything in a single box reduces the amount of paper used, and therefore, thrown away. By rights, you ought to be proud of me for my efficiency.

The thing is, I wasn’t the only one making last-minute preparations. Dad’s illness has done more than simply throw everyone’s holiday schedule out of whack – and it seems churlish to point that out, or even use it as an excuse. After the Christmas Eve services were over, I made my way to see him and Mom at the home, and while he’s in noticeably better shape be certain metrics, insofar as he is fully lucid and communicative, than he was only a couple of weeks ago, I have to admit that he seems to have rather lost the will to fight.

So, once Jenn joined us at his bedside, he was going over the preparations he wanted us to make regarding his funeral. Just a few minor tweaks, actually – most of the order of services he’d already written down and stashed in his Bible for us to retrieve and follow, which got a tearful chuckle out of Jenn for his characteristic advance planning. It seems that, depending on the time, he’s okay with having a luncheon afterwards catered by Chick-fil-A (so, obviously, it can’t be on a Sunday); he’s still undecided about whether to have the visitation on the evening before, or on the same day and leading up to the funeral itself.

One thing he was insistent upon was about the speakers; while he wants Pastor Scott to deliver the message, and Junior and Scott Olson to say a few words as well (and, as family, he has graciously allowed us free rein to speak if we wish; personally, if you managed to do so, I should be able to), he was crystal clear that he didn’t want an ‘open mike’ time. I joked (because what else can I do at a time like this, honey?) that if we did, the service would last all day and all night – we’d need more catering than for just one meal (and probably have to engage more than one vendor – as tasty as Chick-fil-A may be, who wants to eat the same meal twice in a row?). He might have been amused by my comment, but he countered that he simply didn’t want to make everything about him. Which I found weird, and told him so; like the bride at a wedding, the corpse at the funeral is by definition the focus of everyone’s attention, and rightly so. No, he replied, he wanted the focus to be on God as much as himself.

What can I say to that, honey? This is the sort of thing that shows just why that ‘open mike’ time would go on forever if we were to have it. He isn’t a pillar of the community – of the church family – just by dint of his age, his experience or his level of financial or material success. He has this heart, and always has had this heart, of subservience to the One who gave us all life twice over – in his case, three times, if we count his recovery from sepsis five years ago.

I know it’s an odd – and depressing – subject to deal with for Christmas morning. One expects today to be a day of miracles, of hope and new beginnings. And for all I know, his Christmas may be that kind of day, although not in the way we would see it. Like Aunt Belva after her ninety-seventh birthday party, he might very well be able to go Home for Christmas – preferably, after we’ve had a chance to visit him this afternoon, of course. But whether or not that happens – and while he’s dwindled to a skeleton with skin and bedsores over the past couple of weeks, there’s no particular reason that today should be that day – he’s made his last-minute preparations, and given us instructions in case it should. 

It does make it feel, though, like I’ve wasted my time wrapping his present if he won’t the chance to enjoy it, though…

Anyway, let Pete know to leave the gates unlocked, and keep an eye out for him. As for us, wish us luck; we may have our instructions, but we could still use it.