A World Without David Bowie isn’t Quite Right

Christmas can be sad. But it doesn’t have to be. It’s up to us.

Like any other time of the year, we make it what we can, what we will.

Christmases with young children are the best. We adults have to put aside our own melancholy to ensure they have fun and, in the process, we become contaminated with their joy; the lights and sounds and presents that signal Santa is here.

But, as children grow, it’s easier to get lost in the mire of black bile, taking trips down memory lane that serve no good. I sometimes feel I’m ‘missing’ people I’ve never met: Queen Elizabeth, Leonard Cohen, Prince. I found myself saying last week: A world without David Bowie is not quite right is it?

Every year, our collective hearts ache for the families coping with the death of loved ones ‘at this time of year’, as if the suffering at other times can be lessened which is, of course, ludicrous.

I have a litany of lost loved ones – two brothers (suicide in his thirties, heart attackin his fifties), a favourite Aunt (too young from a brain tumour), a father (long ago), my first love (even longer), our faithful Lab Thor, my precious mother Mammy (just last year). It is easy to wallow; I have certainly taken that route but to what end? I miss them in different ways at all sorts of odd moments throughout the year so it doesn’t make sense to further fuss just because of a man in a red suit (or a baby in a manger, if that’s your bag).

So what should we do? I have tried avoidance (but, you know, they will not stop playing Silent Night in the grocery store) so now I use the embrace-it method.

In the UK last year, it was a traditional English day, complete with a flaming pudding and Queen’s speech in front of the telly. The year before was Irish fare: duck and soda bread. Tatties and Neeps in Scotland. This year, as we straddle the Swiss/French border, my bloke has offered to take up the dinner challenge. It will be a surprise for me, but I do know there is ice-cream involved at the end. We decorate a table, buy each other a ten-dollar gift, make presents for the pets in our care, and wander about the streets seeing children with new bikes and footballs, and hearing snippets of families in their folds.

If sorrow seeps, I send it packing with a silly game or hilarious online videos. And I think about the year to come. Where to go next? I’ll be chasing Northern Lights in Sweden first. What are my new challenges? Still dabbling in languages and getting nowhere. Maybe, I will take drawing lessons instead. Life in general: finish my latest manuscript, improve my yoga practice.

What am I trying to say in this post? Almost five hundred words and have I reached my point? I could say it with just two words: DON’T WALLOW. But I am an enthusiastic fan of reading my own words so if you think I’m going to delete everything else I just wrote, you don’t know me well.

Happy Holiday Season everyone.