It is Winter Solstice, just a few days before Christmas.
December was Mom’s time of the year. She loved when we would do something to mark the Solstice, to pause and reflect on the ending of one trip around the sun and the start of a new journey around the sun.
It is hard to do any of this right now.
This might be the last post on this website, so please, indulge me a little as I try to wrap it up and send it.
(Not) Like The Ones I Used To Know
A Hard Candy Christmas, Part 1
We participated in the Luciafest at Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’ ) Church in Philadelphia two weeks ago. Luciafest at this church is an 80+-year-old event that I brought my family and Mom to on a random December Sunday in 2008, and we were so amazed by it all that my kids started performing in it the very next year and every year since. Mom loved it so much; she would buy a ticket for all eight shows every year and would cry when it was over.
In 2018, my oldest daughter performed as Lucia, the hightlight of the show. The following year, my niece was Lucia. And my other daughter was to be Lucia the next year. And then the pandemic stole two years of shows from us. Well, my daughter finally got to be Lucia this year, but it was too late for Mom.
That was not an easy weekend.
A Hard Candy Christmas, Part 2
This past Sunday was our Esposito Family Christmas Party. This party has been going on since 1989 to honor my Great-Grandmother’s legendary Christmas Eve after she passed away in earlier that year. Mom was close with my Great-Grandmother; it was her that Mom was named after. The Christmas Party is a huge event, sometimes over 100 family members, catered with a DJ, an open bar, and Santa.
My Mom’s Dad, my Pop-Pop, organized it for years, and my Mom took over for him and organized it for years after that. Mom stopped planning it several years ago, but it was still as important to her as anything else we did all year.
This year, my Aunts asked me to put together a photo montage of all of the past parties to play on the wall during the party. It was an incredibly cathartic experience, going through 30+ years of party photos, and even the older ones from my Great-Grandmonther’s house.
It helped me realize that these things, Christmas, and all of these traditions, are bigger than Mom. They are sacred and special and need to be protected, even when it is really hard.
The party was great, and the montage turned out wonderfully…but, again, that was not an easy night.
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
I suspect that Christmas will be the hardest of all the holidays, and we haven’t even gotten things rolling yet!
On every Christmas Eve for the past years, Mom would host a seven-fishes Italian feast at her home. It wasn’t all the traditional fishes (some of them), but it became a sacred tradition for us. All the Spode Christmas China would come out, and the presents for the kids and grandkids would spill into two rooms.
We’ll be doing some things differently this year. We tried hard to re-create Mom’s Thanksgiving, which broke our hearts. We did it perfectly, and all it did was put into sharp relief that Mom was not there.
My older sister did much of the traditional Thanksgiving cooking and said she felt like an imposter in the kitchen the whole day.
So this year, on Christmas Eve, we will eat early and fast, a low-key feast of items that are easy to prep and even easier to clean up, and then we will set out to lean into some traditions with our extended families and some new traditions for us all.
That is the plan. How will it go? I have no idea.
Ghosts of Christmas Past
For me, Luciafest was really hard this year, and especially as we were leaving. It is an ancient church, the oldest surviving brick building in Philadelphia. It is the oldest church building in Pennsylvania. It is the oldest congregation in continuous existence in the United States. The National Park Service protects the grounds. Many of the gravestones in the churchyard date to the late 1600s. It is a place that always feels like the veil is thin between this world and whatever comes after.
As we were leaving, in the dark, in the rainy mist, walking down the old brick walkway, I kept imagining Mom in all the places she would have stood while we were there for the past 14 years. I kept seeing her all bundled up and in line for the next show, smiling and waving. I imagined her smiling at me, waving, proud of her grandchildren, my daughter who finally got to be Lucia, and proud of us for getting on with life. When I told my wife about it, she said it sounded like I was experiencing the end of an episode of the TV show Cold Case, which made me laugh. Because, honestly, the tears were flowing, and the laughter was welcome.
But after that night, I feel like I came through to the other side of something. I don’t know what or for how long, but I feel different.
I will be devastatingly sad every day for the rest of my life. But I feel like it is time to get on with my life. That is how I feel today, tomorrow is undoubtedly a whole other day, and I am leaving myself space to feel however I feel.
This whole thing has been an ordeal. This year has been exhausting emotionally and physically. Things that happened a year ago feel like five years ago. A photo of me from a year ago looks like I aged ten years. I feel beat up. I have been on ON since Mom got her diagnosis in March. I feel like my sisters, dad, and aunts have all been ON. And then we rolled right into Thanksgiving, and now, Christmas.
I know there will be days in January and February when I can be still and quiet. I know the sadness will be there, maybe even more so when the distractions are gone. Right now, I am looking forward to it. I don’t know how life is supposed to be with Mom, I really don’t, but I am looking forward to having some space to try to sort it out.
Getting Things Put Away for the New Year
It has been a long time since I posted here on this website… honestly, since June. I was so energized and called to be optimistic in the beginning. At some point, it got harder to take the time to sit and write out what I was witnessing, so I switched to just quick updates to the Facebook page. I had bigger plans for this website and kept putting it off.
As my wife and I were talking about Solstice, I mentioned that I didn’t care if we did anything at all, and she reminded me that this was a necessary time. It is time to start putting the old year behind us and preparing for the new year.
And, as always, she is right.
Today I added all the posts I made on Facebook the past few months and backdated them to this website. You can go back and read them all, or not. The important thing for me was making it complete.
Which was hard, lol.
Mom wanted me to write and wanted me to write her story battling this evil cancer, and she never wanted me to stop. She wanted me to write it all down and take all the photos and post them. It was hard, and I did stop. But it is caught up now, at least as much as it will ever be.
Mom’s story is there. I am wrapping up this website with a Christmas bow as this year fades away and the new year approaches.
I don’t anticipate posting anything else here, but you never know. Maybe some new purpose will reveal itself, and maybe not. I will leave it up, regardless.
A Picture Worth a Thousand Words
The picture of Mom at the top of this post is from last year on Christmas Eve.
It was the last big party we had when Mom was healthy.
The cancer was already there, but it was not confirmed, and Mom did not have any significant symptoms yet, so we went all-in on the best Feast of the Seven Fishes we’ve ever had.
Mom knew she had cancer; she told us all last November and most of us (not all of us, I see you!), myself included, blew her off for overreacting. The doctor said no cancer, so, no cancer, is what I said. She let us off the hook, and we had a spectacular Christmas eve.
But that picture… I’ve printed it out and framed it. I see my Mom and think, “There she was, healthy and celebrating.” but then I think, “She knew. She knew this was the last one. It is right there in her face.”
I think Mom knew, and she started to tell us, we pushed back, and Mom let it go until she couldn’t let it go anymore.
Believing her last November would probably not have mattered, really, in her care or her prognosis. Who knows. Maybe it would have, we can’t know. There was never going to be a happy ending to this.
But for one night last Christmas Eve, we had everything. Everything. Mom gave us that, and I will never forget it.
And when I feel like crawling under a blanket this Christmas and waiting until it is all over, I will draw strength from that, and I will show up for my kids and my fam.
Christmas is coming. Life is calling.
We will show up.
Thank You
Thank you all for coming along for the ride, for all of your love and your support, your kind notes and comments, your likes and hearts, your dinners and donations, your visits and your hugs.
One wonderful thing that came out of this ordeal is that our family is closer than ever before. Not just my wife and kids, my sisters, but all of my aunts and cousins who rallied this past year around Mom. We are all so much closer than we have ever been, closer than I could have ever imagined.
This great, magical family I get to be a part of is bigger and brighter to me than it has been my whole life.
I consider it the last, and best, Christmas present Mom ever gave me.
Thanks, Mom. Merry Christmas.
